"Hellooooooooooo, Death Mart shoppers! We are so happy for this amazing turnout for our free turkey dinner raffle!"

The manager of the grocery store was standing at the deli, clutching a microphone next to a small amp. She was calling loudly-to a crowd of three: Patty, Tsubaki, and some man wearing a blue snowflake sweater. Patty started applauding wildly, which convinced the man to timidly clap along as well.

Tsubaki just clasped her hands in front of herself and tried to keep up her smile. She then leaned to Patty and whispered, "If everyone is fighting over turkeys in this store, why aren't there more people who entered this raffle?"

"Shh!" Patty instructed. "I got this!" She then turned to the manager: "Let's hear the results, baby!"

"Oh, my," the manager said with a smile, chuckling a bit. "We have a very excited contestant today!" She then frowned. "Who bought up just about every raffle ticket we have, harrassing our Death Mart family of employees, and putting a stock boy into a choke hold."

Tsubaki did a double-take. Then she heard something fall behind her and roll to her feet. It was a can of cranberry sauce. She looked behind her to see what-who-knocked it down: it was a stock boy, with a neck brace, quivering in Aisle 32, nervously looking around the corner to keep an eye on the excited contestant.

Tsubaki then turned again to see Patty, giggling to herself as she was hopping up and down, now clutching long streams of tickets.

"Um, Patty? Would it not have been less expensive to, I don't know, just buy the turkey yourself instead of buying those raffle tickets?"

Patty frowned. "Got to suck the fun out of this, too? God, you're worse than Maka!"

Tsubaki pouted a bit. "That hurts."

"Besides, the raffle benefits my favorite cause: the Death City Zoo!"

Tsubaki smiled. "Oh, well that is a good deed." Then her eyes narrowed as she remembered: "The zoo that put out a restraining order on you."

Patty glowered. "I'll show them who's the nuisance. How will they appreciate it when their 478 dollar and 22 cent donation is discovered to have come from the only person known to break a giraffe out of her holding cage and ride through the streets of a crowded city?!"

The manager had her fingers to her forehead, trying to repress her headache. She sighed, inhaled as she stood up straighter, and replaced her smile. "We are grateful for all the contributions we had for this contest. Even though that meant numerous customers were scared away from competing as all tickets were purchased by one person. Then we ordered more tickets...which were also purchased by one person."

"Not mine!"

Patty turned to look at the man in the snowflake sweater, who was waving his one raffle ticket. The man then looked to Patty with a pleasant smile-which quickly disappeared as Patty started growling at him. Tsubaki had to pull her back by the collar of her sweater and a stern, "Down, girl."

"So before we have more fist-fights in our supermarket today, we'll start the raffle!" the manager announced. Behind her, four brawny butchers, their strength evident by their massive muscles and toned physique, still struggled to wheel up a massive table with a large hand-cranked device atop it. Inside the green plastic container were numerous ping-pong balls, each with a different number. And thanks to the number of tickets Patty had purchased, the butchers were out of breath by the time they got the machine to the front of the meat display case. One butcher had to lean against the table to catch his breath.

The manager paused, waiting for the butchers' labored breathing to subside. "Okay!" the manager said cheerfully, as she grasped the crank. "Let's roll the machine and see who wins the turkey!"

"I think I have a good shot this year," the man in the snowflake sweater said.

"Cram it, Joey!" Patty shouted. "I'm winning that turkey!"

"Patty," Tsubaki said gently, holding up her hands. "Let's keep our calm here."

"Yes!" the man insisted. "May the best person win! And, by the way, my name is actually Julian."

"Your name is whatever I say it is!" Patty screamed, swinging her fists full of tickets at him, just missing his face because Tsubaki wrapped her arms around Patty's waist and lifted her off the floor. "Joey" recoiled and shoved an exhausted butcher in front of him as a shield.

"And our winner is…" The manager began, reaching into the door opened in the machine to pull out the ping-pong ball. Patty stopped swinging her limbs. Tsubaki still was holding her off the ground but now looked to the manager. Joey turned as well.

The manager had to squint at the small writing on the ball. She then shouted, "Raffle number 08092013!"

Patty pushed Tsubaki's arms down off her waist and left up through her arms, landing on her feet and screaming, "I won!"

The manager frowned. "You cannot know so soon that you-"

"I memorized every ticket number!" Patty shouted, having now emerged in front of the manager, dragging her hands along one line of tickets, their numbers facing the manager. Without having to look, Patty's fingers traced along the tickets and stopped at the exact number: 08092013. The manager froze.

"I win! Give me the bird!"

"I so want to…" the manager said through clenched teeth. Then she smirked. "But I think a recount is in order."

Patty's face fell as the manager's hand went past her face and dove back into the machine, pulling out a new ping-pong ball.

"The winner is number 51204!"

"Yep!" The winning raffle ticket was on the fifth row of tickets Patty clutched, as she pointed.

The manager was sweating. "I-I-I-I misread! Pick a new one!" The manager shoved her hand in again and pulled a new ball. "It's number 80910!"

Then the manager saw Ticket Number 80910 in her face.

"It was upside down! 01608!"

Patty wiggled her eyebrows as she pointed to Ticket Number 01608.

The manager shoved both hands into the machine, pulling out more balls, even letting them fall along the supermarket floor with hollow soft sounds, and started reading off number: 081213, 3185, 120504. Patty delighted as she held up the tickets at different angles before the flustered manager's face.

"021713!" the manager shrieked.

Patty stopped smiling. "Oh. I don't have that number."

"Oh!" Joey shouted. "That's my num-"

Tsubaki wrapped her hands around Joey's mouth, pulling him back into Aisle 32, past the terrified stockboy with a neckbrace, just avoiding smacking into him. "Don't say another syllable. Just be silent. She is a killing machine. Don't make eye contact…"

A good thing that Joey avoided eye contact: Patty's death glare at that moment caused everyone near her, including the manager, to skip back five steps. Slowly, Patty's head jerked to face the manager, and she intoned, "Give. Me. My. Turkey."

The four butchers were now hidden behind the manager. "I think you should give her the bird," one butcher said, shaking in his apron.

The manager sighed. "Fine!" She dropped the mic-its feedback breaking through the amp, causing the butchers to cringe. But Patty, hands to her side, did not flinch. Her fingers curled into her hands until the tickets were crumbling under her strength.

"Calm down," Tsubaki whispered to her, having removed Joey to the parking lot and instructing him to run-if he could stand any chance of getting ahead of Patty before her potential rampage through the streets. "It's okay. No more competition. Just breathe. You're going to get your fresh turkey."

Tsubaki stopped when she then heard chuckling. Patty lifted her head: her face was confused as she followed the sound of laughter to the manager herself, her mouth curled into a sinister grin.

"Oh, it's a fresh turkey alright." She snapped her fingers. "Bring our winner her fresh turkey!" she commanded to the butchers. The four quickly nodded and dashed away to the back of the deli.

Patty released her fists and smiled happily. She started clapping her hands. "Yay, me!" Before the manager knew it, Patty was already in front of her, shaking her hand vigorously. "Thanks, Manager! I really appreciate your understanding! Otherwise, Santa wouldn't be the only one leaving something awful down your chimney this year!"

"Th-thanks," the manager tried to say, her body shaking from both rage and Patty's grip. Her devilish grin then returned as she spotted her butchers returning with the fresh turkey. Before Patty could turn around, Tsubaki already was looking down at it-and her friendly smile disappeared and was replaced with a bemused frown. "What on earth…?" Tsubaki asked.

"What's wrong, Tsu?" Patty asked, eyes closed and still smiling as she spun around. "You act like you've never seen a turkey!"

"Well," Tsubaki started, "in a grocery store, they tend to be not so...um...alive?"

Patty's eyes snapped opened. She looked down to see a full-grown, very much alive, very curious turkey, now pecking at Patty's boots.

Patty's head turned almost 180 degrees to stare at the manager. "The hell is this crap?!"

The manager smiled. "Your fresh turkey. Enjoy."

Patty's face contorted into a panic grimace as sweat accumulated. She walked backwards-her head still turned back 180 degrees-and threw her arms back to grip the manager by her face. "But you're called Death Mart! You don't sell living things! Everything here's dead! Dead beef! Dead carrots! Dead artificially flavored fruit snacks!"

The manager was cackling as she answered: "We're expanding our offerings." She then shoved her finger into Patty's nose. "All for you."

Patty frowned. "It's because I threatened to dropkick the free sample person the last time I was here, isn't it?"

Behind the stockboy with the neckbrace was a terrified woman clutching a tray of peanut brittle samples.

The manager frowned. Then she bellowed: "No refunds!" She then shoved Patty's forehead, knocking her down on her back-well, chest-and with her butchers fled to her office, where she could lock the door.

"Hey!" Patty shouted, turned back her head and spinning to chase after the manager. "I want my dead bird!"

"Patty!" Tsubaki shouted, grabbing Patty again by the waist and holding her up. "Enough! You're causing enough disruptions!"

"But I slaved for weeks to threaten people to get the tickets to enter the raffle as part of my overly complex goal of getting one freaking turkey for Christmas dinner! Is that so wrong?!"

"Yes!" the entire grocery store of customers and employees all shouted simultaneously.

"I wasn't asking you!" Patty shouted. "I was asking Tsubaki!"

"I agree with them," Tsubaki said calmly, still clutching the fussing Thompson.

"Oh, like you're a fair judge!" Patty shouted back, crossing her arms. Then she felt something land on her shoulder. It was the turkey, who had managed to fly up and land there. "And what about you?!" she shouted. "You're supposed to be dead!"

The turkey responded by pecking at Patty's head, producing a hollow sound with each peck.

Patty shoved her hands over her face. Her voice could be heard, albeit muffled, over the sounds of endless pecking: "Worst. Christmas. Ever."