Author's note: This is my first story to be published on this site, so I'm a little nervous about it. The idea for the first scene came to me shortly after getting spoiled for season 9 episode 11 and I felt like the scene was too amusing not to write down. Because I didn't want to step into the territory of a Shamy in Texas story I was unsure if I'd ever let it see the light of day. But after some thought I figured, why the hell not, especially after I decided that the setting wouldn't be Sheldon's childhood home. I would like to build onto this in the future, but I'm not sure how long it would take me and I would like to find a beta to help me prevent plot holes, awkward wording, and drifts in character if anyone in interested. (Prompts for future scenes are also welcome.)
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Amy settled a short distance away from the end of the register conveyor belt and smiled. Sheldon and Missy were busy arguing about which flavor of ice cream to buy, and Mary was unloading her shopping cart and rolling her eyes.
"Shelly for the last time, we are not getting pistachio almond."
"But it's green, and has a nice mild flavor that everyone will enjoy."
"Yeah, but I'm not giving up my dutch chocolate," Missy huffed as she brandished the carton of chocolate ice cream above her head.
"No, that chocolate is too rich, we'll get sick of it half way through finishing it." Sheldon's voice had begun to get whinier and twangier and his cheeks were getting red with exasperation.
Amy took a step forward and cleared her throat. She really hated to interrupt them and spoil the show, but she couldn't help but throw in her own two cents.
"Proposal, we get both and forget about vanilla, I highly doubt that we'll finish both cartons by the end of our stay anyway."
Missy and Sheldon both paused at the same time and turned to look at Amy with identical expressions of annoyance.
"Little lady, I hope you haven't forgotten that mother plans to fix peach cobbler tonight, and everybody knows that you can't serve peach cobbler in Texas without Blue Bell vanilla ice cream."
Missy nodded in agreement. "That listeria outbreak last year caused a state wide dearth of all cobblers, not just peach."
All three of them jumped when, suddenly, Mary yanked the ice cream cartons from her children's hands and plopped them both down beside the vanilla on the conveyor belt.
"That's enough of y'alls squabbling. If I hear anymore of it there will be no cobbler tonight."
For a few moments silence prevailed over the register line as Mary went back to unloading her cart. Behind her Sheldon and Missy were silently sticking their tongues out at each other and exchanging faces as Amy tried not to laugh out loud.
"Dang kids throwing junk into other peoples buggies."
Mary was glowering at a box of condoms she'd just fished out of the bottom of her cart. Sheldon snapped back to reality and glance furtively at Amy then back to his mother. Beside them Missy began to laugh and took the box out of Mary's hand and shoved it into the magazine rack above the conveyor.
"Just leave it there and let someone else worry about it mama," she chuckled as she fallowed Mary further up the line.
Sheldon wriggled in his spot for a moment, then turned his back to Amy to start shuffling forward. As soon as he was turned around he shot a hand behind his back, snapped his fingers and pointed at the rack. Amy stood on her toes to try and look around him. Mary was busy digging in her purse in front of the checkout clerk and Missy was browsing the candy. While they were still distracted Amy snatched the box of condoms out of the rack and hid it behind her back.
"I've got to use the ladies room, I'll meet you guys at the car," Amy said. Missy nodded and gave her a thumbs up and Mary didn't seem to notice.
Ten minutes later Amy ran into Sheldon as she left the store.
"Was the mission successful?" he asked as they started towards Missy's car.
She showed him the contents of her purse and replied, "affirmative."
"Good...Next trip we go on together I'm in charge of packing both of our...toiletries. I don't want a situation like this to rise again."
"Pun intended?"
Sheldon sputtered.
Amy smirked and grabbed his hand in an effort to keep him moving. "I'm having a hard time figuring out why you think that this particular idem is counted as one of my toiletries."
"It was decided during this years annual relationship summit that you would be in charge of the purchasing and storing of...paraphernalia concerning certain activities. You might want to check your pdf of our agreement as a reminder. Logically I assumed that you would have made space for them in your luggage."
"Well I'm sorry, they were on my list of things to pack, but they must have gotten misplaced. They're probably still in my night stand."
XXX
It was a short drive from the grocery store to the lake house that they would be staying at for the next week. As they drove up George Junior and his girlfriend, Tanya, could be seen sitting at a patio set on the front porch, smoking. George had the same height and coloring of his mother and siblings, and wore a mechanics jumpsuit with his name stitched on the breast pocket. Tanya was clearly older than her boyfriend, by about ten years, and was in bad need of another bleach job to her roots, which revealed her natural hair color to be black with graying streaks. Everything about her appearance screamed bar fly.
"Bout time y'all showed up," George said as he stubbed his cigarette out in the potted plant by the door. "Hurry up and open this bastard, I gotta piss like a racehorse."
Missy frowned and shoved the grocery bags she was carrying into his lap so she could unlock the door. "John or Meemaw didn't let you in?"
"Nobody's home sugar," Tanya rasped. "We've been sitting here for an hour."
Missy was just about to comment when a small child's giggle sounded from up the street. A burly man with sandy hair and a little old woman wearing a flowery blouse and white caprees were approaching up the sidewalk. Between them a toddler jumped and skipped about, using the adults hands as leverage to kick off and swing betwixt them every few feet. The child's face was dirty, and his blonde hair thoroughly disheveled. Missy watched them approach with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.
"John, Nathan's filthy."
John shrugged. "Blame that on the playground we found," he replied before kissing his wife's cheek.
Inside Sheldon and Amy where putting away the groceries, or at least she was anyway. While they where looking through the cabinets for places to put all the stuff Sheldon had discovered that the arrangement of all the cookware provided by the resort wasn't ideal. He was transferring a tray of spatulas and cooking spoons from a far drawer by the door to the one beside the stove when Nathan came barreling past, screaming with Mary hot on his tail.
"Gotcha," Mary crowed as she picked him up after he had crashed into Amy's legs. "It's bath time young man."
"No Meemee, no," Nathan whined as they disappeared down the hall.
Amy laughed and went back to putting away the groceries. By the stove, Sheldon loosened the white knuckle grip on his tray of spatulas and shook his head.
XXX
After dinner George and Tanya left for his house in a small town nearby and John and Missy cuddled up on the living room couch with a couple glasses of wine. In the kitchen Mary and Amy were chatting enthusiastically as they washed the dishes. Sheldon had, meanwhile, taken to the bathroom so that he could disinfect it. He had just finished and was leaving to switch out his cleaning supplies for his toiletry bag and pajamas when he ran into Meemaw in the hallway.
"There you are Moon-Pie. I was just looking for you."
"Of course you were. You wouldn't want to let me miss saying goodnight to the best Meemaw in the whole wide world," Sheldon said as he gave her an awkward hug.
"That's nice baby," she said as she received the hug, "but that's not why I wanted to talk to you. I moved yours and Amy's suitcases to the room across the hall."
Sheldon's brows furrowed in confusion. "Why?"
"Well I just thought that you two would much rather have that room, seeing as it's got two twin size beds and not those rickety old bunks."
"Aren't you afraid of sleeping in that bunk Meemaw? The top bed could collapse and kill you."
Meemaw chuckled. "Moon-Pie I'm nearly eighty years old, I've had a good run. Now back to whatever you were doing, Nathan's waiting for his bed time story."
Sheldon frowned as he looked into the bedroom with the two twin beds. Despite her looks Meemaw wasn't as frail as one would think, and what she had done to the furniture proved that. Before, there had been a night stand with a table lamp separating the beds. Now it was sitting against the opposite wall and the beds had been pushed together and made up with new bedding, with the original linens wadded up in a corner of the room. Sheldon looked over his shoulder in time to see Meemaw give him a wink as she shut the door to the other bedroom.