Percy Philadelphia Jones was annoyed. And it wasn't a minor annoyance, one that he could merely brush off like the great majority of things in life (after all, he was immortal and they were bound to go away eventually). No, this was the one thing in life that he could not stand.
The convenience store was out of Hershey's Chocolate. Actually, to be quite honest, he wasn't sure if they even stocked it in the first place. And it wasn't even like he could go somewhere else. It was almost two o'clock in the morning. He was lucky he could even find a place that was open and sold chocolate milk.
Not for the first time this morning, Percy decided he hated his boss. Every time he asked for a "quick favor," it ended up with Percy staying up all night doing something he didn't want to be doing. He cursed his need to be such a people pleaser, something ingrained in his personality since the Quakers taught it to him.
Percy pushed his glasses up as he stared at the candy shelf. They, being the representation of the Hershey's chocolate factory, automatically listed facts about each candy as he looked at them, including cocoa content, country of origin, sugar percentage, number of calories, and the top three ingredients in each candy.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the clerk watching him. There was ten minutes to closing, and it was obvious that the guy wanted him out of here. After all, who would want to be manning a convenience store in the middle of the night any longer than necessary?
I'll just pick a different chocolate. Just this once. Now the trouble was which to choose? They all seemed equally good (well, equally inferior). But which to choose? Snickers, Twix, Kit-kat? Virginia and Washington had assured him that Mars candy was definitely good, and it was common knowledge that Swiss chocolate was tasty, which meant anything Nestlé.
There was a sudden tapping noise, and Percy jumped a little. The clerk had started tapping his fingers on the counter top, not even trying to hide the fact that he wanted Percy out. Percy started sweating a little. It wasn't his fault he was taking so long! If they'd just had what he wanted in the first place, then this wouldn't have been a problem, and he would have been in and out within sixty seconds. Instead, they had to sell everything but the candy that was made in their own damn state. Their fault entirely.
Tap. Tap tap-tap. Tap. Tap tap-tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap tap-tap tap tap-tap. Percy's scowl deepened as the clerk tapped out the traditional wedding song. He glanced over again, to find that the clerk was watching the seconds tick by on the wall clock over the door. Glancing at the clock himself, Percy discovered that he'd wasted five minutes staring at the candy. Well, damn.
Percy suddenly came to a realization. He was an addict. Of chocolate. And a snobby one, too. It was like being offered your drug of choice and trying to refuse it because it didn't have the purity level you were used to, but not being able to tear yourself away, because you are addicted. Percy realized his hands were trembling, and wondered if it was just from exhaustion, or lack of chocolate.
The clerk let out a very audible sigh, and Percy looked up at the clock again. Two minutes left. Oh, the agony of indecision. Percy couldn't quite tell if the thought was sarcastic or serious. He looked over his choices again, and again, they all seemed equal. Why was this so hard? It was just chocolate, for Pete's sake!
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Percy wanted to snap at the clerk for being so annoying. Honestly, he was prolonging the decision! Quickly, he glanced up at the clock again. Only a minute left.
To hell with indecision.
Percy grabbed all of the candies that had chocolate in them and brought them up to the counter. The clerk gave another sigh, this one seeming to say "About time!" Percy swallowed down the urge to say something rude.
The clerk scanned the bar code of each of the candies, the machine making a shrill "BEEP!" each time.
"Your total is ten dollars and ninety-eight cents," the clerk said, his tone having less excitement than the monotonous hum of the refrigerators at the back.
Percy gave a cheerful smile as he pulled money out of his coat pocket. He put two rolls of dimes and a roll of pennies on the counter, then broke open another one, removed two pennies, and walked out. I hope you have to count all of that, he thought, unwrapping one of his candies. He bit into it, walking down the pitch dark alleyway that was a short cut back to his house. It wasn't bad, he supposed, but it wasn't Hershey's.
He only had three chocolate bars left by the time he returned to his house, and had come to the conclusion that Swiss chocolate was definitely better than Mars chocolate, no matter what Washington and Virginia say, and had come up with fourteen different ideas on a new chocolate bar for Hershey's, as well as three minor thoughts for tweaking the recipe of a couple chocolates already produced by Hershey's.
Percy fumbled around in the dark for the right key to his house as he walked up the porch steps. He then tripped over a box that happened to be on the top step. He let out a choice German word or two, unlocked the door, and took the box inside.
Once he turned on the light, he found the box had a note on top. Percy, it read, thanks for being such a big help in the last couple weeks. I know I've been kind of a pain, but now I'd like to make it up a little with this.-Tom Corbett Percy sliced open the box with his pocketknife. Inside lay at least fifty Hershey's chocolate bars.
"Nope!" he said aloud. "Not doing this. Not after all I've done for chocolate tonight." He grabbed the box and took it into the pantry, setting it on the highest shelf, where younger and shorter states couldn't get to it, should they happen to come around any time soon. He then turned off all of his lights and went to bed.
Ten minutes later, he crept back down to the pantry. One couldn't hurt…