"That's loud," Stacy said as she and Candace walked into the store.
"Yes, yes it is," her best friend agreed, "Now everyone in the Tri-State Area probably knows my car is locked. I'll have to ask my brothers to fix that."
"What do you think they're doing right now?" Stacy teased, "After that giant gingerbread house was destroyed by a ton of snow, they must have found something else to do."
"I still don't understand how that happened. Wasn't today supposed to be, like, 60 degrees?"
"Well, I figure after what happened on the summer solstice, you'd think they'd go all out again for the winter solstice," reasoned Stacy.
"Anyway, they're probably inside watching a movie or something. The shortest day of the year really took its toll on them. Besides, Mom and Dad are home, so there's no way they're doing something bustworthy now. And it's 11:30 at night. They should be sleeping," Candace ranted.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Stacy agreed, happy her friend's mind was off trying to get her brothers in trouble. "So, what does the recipe call for?"
"We need rum extract, flour, peanut butter, and… What are date nuts?"
Stacy and Ginger were sleeping over at Candace's house for the night, and the two were looking forward to baking date nut cookies for the Christmas party later that week.
Soon they found every ingredient they needed, all except for one: date nuts. There were shelves upon shelves of nuts in the store, but Candace and Stacy thought they were nuts not to find any date nuts.
At one shelf, Stacy kneeled down to examine a container full of what looked like large raisins. The label read: Pitted Dates (may contain pits). Stacy showed the label to her friend, both laughing at the irony. "It's like, 'We took the pits out, but they might still be in there'!" she giggled.
Eventually the two came upon date nut bread. It was a dark brown color, similar to the pitted dates. After thinking about it for a while, Candace said, "They probably don't sell date nuts to make your own date nut bread, because they want you to buy theirs! But, we're not making date nut bread, we're making date nut cookies." She took the recipe out and stopped dead in her tracks. "Stacy?" She said half-heartedly.
Stacy walked over to see the recipe. "It calls for a half a cup of chopped dates. Dates… Might not be nuts."
Stacy face-palmed herself. After looking around for at least a half an hour for the elusive "date nuts", she felt just about as sharp as a spoon.
So, the girls roamed the fruit section looking for dates. "I don't even know what dates look like," Candace complained. Realization struck her again. "Wait… If dates could be pitted, they have to be fruits. Nuts can't have pits! Stacy, do you have your phone on you?Mine's dead, so I left it at home. What's the point of carrying a dead phone around? Anyway, could you look up what a date is?"
Stacy smiled sheepishly. "I forgot my phone at home earlier today."
"That's okay, we can figure it out. Hey, look at this! It's called an apple pear."
Stacy giggled. "Is it an apple or a pear?"
They turned a corner, and pointed at a different kind of fruit. "And this is a grape tomato," Candace said.
Stacy was puzzled. She knew very well what grape tomatoes are (for a couple of seconds, she flashed back to the time she was at Jenny's birthday party and she had about 40 too many grape tomatoes), and this mystery fruit was definitely not a grape tomato. Candace picked up on this too. The whole table was filled with grape tomatoes that were on sale, all except for a carton of another fruit, but it wasn't labeled anywhere.
"It looks like a black avocado," Stacy commented. Candace took one of the fruits, and carefully put two and two together.
"Wait…" She started, "This might be a date. Look, Stacy! It's the same color as that date bread, and as the pitted dates. I have a feeling this is what we're looking for!"
Stacy was reluctant to believe this, but what else could be a date?
The girls took the fruit up to a cashier. "What is this?" Asked Candace, showing her the mystery fruit.
"That's an avocado," the cashier replied. I knew it, thought Stacy.
"Do you have any dates?" Asked Candace.
"Well, secretly I'm very lonely," said the woman, not realizing what Candace meant. When she didn't get a response, she figured it out. "Oh, dates," she corrected, "Go down that aisle with the Spider-Man balloon and they'll be on your left."
At the mention of Spider-Man, Candace whipped around, excited. "It's just a balloon, Candace," Stacy reminded her friend, taking the avocado. "I'm going to go put this back."
The girls searched the Spider-Man aisle, but they had no luck finding a date. Eventually, they just found the pitted dates that may contain pits and bought those.
As the two best friends climbed into the Neddlington Nymph, Candace turned to Stacy and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if I brought home that avocado and put it in the cookies?"
I do not own Phineas and Ferb nor Spider-Man.