Cable Kings and Desert Foxes

My palms were literally sweating. Like, actually dripping. Dad had left me in charge of the house for the weekend, which obviously meant I had one job: don't screw anything up.

Naturally, I'd managed to knock over the cable box while attempting to show my little brother some "sick" gaming setup. The internet was dead. My Twitch stream in two hours was dead. My social life was dead.

"You're such a fox sometimes," Mia had told me yesterday. "Sneaky and chaotic."

I'd taken it as a compliment. Now, staring at the tangled mess of wires behind the TV, I wasn't feeling so sneaky. I was feeling like an idiot who'd just killed the household WiFi.

Outside, palm trees swayed in the California heat. Typical. Everyone else was probably at the beach, living their best lives, while I was here, debating whether I could somehow tape the cable box back together and pretend nothing happened.

Then I saw it through the sliding glass door.

A fox. An actual desert fox, sitting on the patio, staring at me like it was judging my entire existence.

"No way," I muttered.

The fox flicked its ear and trotted off to where the cable line ran from the street to the house. It started pawing at the ground near the connection point.

I stepped outside, careful not to scare it. The fox looked at me, then nudged something half-buried in the dirt. A loose cable connector. The one the Comcast guy had swear was "totally secure, bro."

"You're kidding."

I knelt down and tightened it. The fox sat back, tail curled, looking way too pleased with itself.

Back inside, the router lights flickered to life.

"You're literally a genius," I whispered to the fox through the glass. It dipped its head like, yeah, I know, and slipped away into the sunset.

My palms were still sweating. But somehow, everything was going to be fine.