“Whoa.” uttered Karyn as she absorbed the knowledge dump.
“I know Kung Fu.” deadpanned Jon.
Karyn rolled her eyes again. “What a dork,” she thought. “Still, that’s why I love him—uhhh, like him—uhh, am friends with him—uhh… You know what, Inner Monologue, let’s just, uh, put a pin in the l-words for now and move on. I think we’re getting off track.
“So it’s like I thought,” Karyn announced. “Intent matters. You can’t ignore the constraints of the garment’s design, but your thoughts can inform your power’s fulfillment of the swap; and you have a bit of flexibility with never previously worn items,” Karyn exposited for the reader, since Jon had magically received the same knowledge she did.
“You don’t necessarily have to make your own clothes to do what you were trying to do. You could, but it would be a lot easier to just buy clothes you knew had never been worn. Honestly, both new clothes and swapping with used clothes could both be a lot of fun. We can use my Amazin’ First account to order whatever we want you to wear.”
“Amazin’ First?” asked Jon, confused.
“You know—Amazin’ First: the massive online retailer that can amazingly get you any product you want from A to Z with a single click no later than FirstThing™ the next day?”
“Of course I know what Amazin’ First is,” Jon defended, “I just don’t understand how that solves the problem of accidentally swapping with someone who tried on the clothes and decided not to keep them.”
“I get all my stuff online, and inside the boxes the clothes usually arrive in individually sealed bags from the original manufacturer—occasionally you get something that someone else must have returned, but it’s super obvious. Why don’t you go swap back with the poor randos from the mall who have no idea what’s going on and wish them up some free therapy, and I will see you FirstThing™ tomorrow—I have to pick something up from the library at school.”
“Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. G!” Karyn shouted over her shoulder to the otherwise, uhh, engaged lady(?) of the house, and with that she was gone.
