Disclaimer: I do not own any of these bishounen, no matter HOW much I may wish otherwise. I also do not own the Wal-Mart or Lego trademarks. I did not earn any money for writing this fanfic, so please don't sue me!!!!!
After-Thanksgiving Sale:
An experience in Martial Arts Shopping
The mission: Buy 3 boxes of Lego toys at special sale price
The location: Wal-Mart
Mission Preparation Time: 4:00 am
Mission Start Time: 6:00am
This was the info given to me by my mother on the day before Thanksgiving. She had to work that day, and couldn't shop for herself, so she was planning to send my sister and I to do the shopping. My sister was being sent to buy two Gameboy Advances, but I had been chosen for the very worst of things. Toys. Of all the toys in the store, I had been sent to get three boxes of a certain size of Lego which were intended to be for Christmas gifts. It didn't sound too bad, really. But when the family got together for Thanksgiving, my aunt who works at Wal-Mart began to tell us about the mobs of people who go in for the sale day. I listened with great concern at the details.
"Although the Wal-Mart sale ad says it doesn't open until 6:00, they open the doors at 5:30." I could mentally picture myself among mobs of people, fighting to get even one box of the Legos. The scene in my head ended with me in the hospital, as I had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Frowning, I made my way back to my bedroom, which I share with my younger sister. This required more elaborate plans. I opened the closet door, and surveyed my group of chibi bishounen who had quite thoroughly stuffed themselves on Thanksgiving dinner, which I had brought back to them.
"Guys." I paused dramatically. "We have a battle on our hands."
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Later that night, I drilled my chibi bishounen on the plan I had thought up. I would take a team of Zelgadiss, Rezo, Marron, Nuriko and Sanosuke with me to the store. Rezo, for the most part, would ride in the pocket of my jacket, maintaining a spell that would keep the other five at full size for the shopping trip. Normally, the chibi bishounen were only three inches tall, but I thought this to be a special occasion. We reviewed the plan once more, then went to bed extra early, because we would need a bit of preparation time in the morning.
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For one thing, 4:00 am is not a very nice time to begin a day. But if you have to drive over to the store in the dark, especially with five grouchy chibi bishounen; you can pretty much expect the rest of the day to stink. We arrived at Wal-Mart roughly around 4:30, and went to wait in line to even get in the store. Surprisingly, there was no line whatsoever. We discovered the source of this when we reached the building and the automatic doors opened for us. We cautiously walked in to the building and began to look at the stacks of sale items. The sale merchandise had been stacked up together to form little blocks of stuff between the largest aisles. The blocks were covered with plastic wrap or the same stuff that paper bags are made out of. We did not know what they were for, as we had never been to an After-Thanksgiving sale before, so we asked a sales clerk. She informed us that the sale merchandise would be unwrapped at 6:00, and we could buy them then. I glanced at my watch. 4:45. We had over an hour to wait. We split up to watch out merchandise separately, as they were being kept on opposite ends of the store, and agreed to meet up in the cloth section after we got the stuff. As I made my way through the Girl's Clothing section, I decided this was going to be more complicated than I had first thought. I found the block where the Legos had been stacked and stood at the end of the Frozen Food aisle. I took Marron, Nuriko, Sanosuke and Zelgadiss out of my pocket and set them on the floor. I held Rezo in my hand and told him to cast the spell that would make the others big. Reluctantly, he obeyed. I drilled them on our plan once again.
"Okay, Marron. Your goal is to distract the other people trying to get these with your beauty, so just walk around and sparkle. If you get a crowd of people following you, lead them away from here and ditch them in the clothing section. Nuriko." I looked over to him.
"Is my job the same as Marron's? After all, I am beautiful too." He asked in an arrogant manner.
"No, I brought you for your muscle, not for your looks. You and Sano and Zel will make a little defensive wall around me while I grab the Legos." I paused again, to glance at Zel. "I have a special place for you to stand." I grabbed his arm and moved him out in the aisle, where people could see him. "Your object is to look mean and scare people away."
"Now wait a minute! I didn't agree to this!" Zel exclaimed angrily.
"Zel, this is the best use for your looks. You will do it, won't you?" I asked in a mockingly cute manner, batting my eyelashes.
"I..." A red tint came up on his face.
"If you don't, then you'll be losing to Rezo, don't you think? He's doing something useful, and if you don't, you may as well go back home." I said decisively.
"I will not lose to that freak!" He exclaimed. From the pocket of my jacket, Rezo stuck his tongue out at Zel.
"Who are you calling a freak?" He demanded in a squeaky chibi bishounen voice.
"Do we always sound that squeaky?" Nuriko asked.
"To me, yeah. Now, Nuriko, Sano, you guys stand here." I showed them spots in the aisle too. "Do the same thing as Zel. Look mean and scare people away."
And thus, we waited. We stood there for a little over an hour. For a time, I wondered if I was perhaps sleeping on my feet, but concluded that I had to stay awake, or I would never get the merchandise. Despite my precautions to keep people away, they began to crowd around the toys as the hour wore on. Zel, Nuriko and Sano scooted a bit closer to me, trying to follow my orders for them to protect me from the other shoppers.
Finally, that moment came. The moment when the sales clerks began to unwrap the merchandise. It was very sudden and caught me completely off guard, to unexpectedly hear the ripping of a million paper bags. It seemed as though every shopper who was close enough to grab the wrapping, did, ripping it off of the merchandise in huge chunks. There was just enough room in front of me to leap foreword to the merchandise and rip off a chunk of the wrapping for myself. The bishounen bravely battled to keep people back as I grabbed three of the lego bags. I quickly retreated in to the frozen food aisle with my prize. I ran perhaps half of the way down the aisle before stopping to look back upon the mob swarming around the toys. Nuriko, Sano and Zel scraped themselves along the floor, to join me in the frozen food aisle.
"You..." Sano growled.
"Left us..." Zel continued.
"TO DIE!" Nuriko was clearly angry about this, but thankfully, was too exhausted from battling with the shoppers to do anything about it.
"Sorry, guys. But look! I got the toys!" I exclaimed happily. They growled at me, and Rezo, as though this was his cue, dropped the "giant" spell that had been keeping them big. They shrunk back to chibi bishounen size, and I put them in the other pocket of my jacket.
"Now, we need to find Marron before we go back to the cloth section." I said to myself, glancing back to the people mobbing the toys. Deciding that it would not be wise to go that way, I continued down the frozen food aisle. There, hiding under a package of frozen peas was Marron, in chibi size.
"I was trying to lose the people in the clothing section, but I somehow got here instead. I thought I should hide." He explained, shivering as I picked him up.
"Good job, Marron!" I put him in the pocket with Rezo. "You should get warm in there." I set off through the mobs of people with my arms securely through the loops on the top of the lego bags.
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It took me a while to get back to the cloth section, because there were a LOT of people that I had to go through to get there. Rezo offered to cast a Fireball on them, but I declined, as I would probably have to pay for the damage done to the store. Finally, I made in there, to see my sister waving around the gameboys victoriously.
"I did it!" She exclaimed.
"And we got out alive!" I laughed triumphantly. We made our way through even more people to the many check out stands and eventually, we were back out in the car.
"It's not even dawn yet!" I exclaimed in wonder as I buckled up my seatbelt.
I can't wait until NEXT year! :)