AN: This was just a story I had to write for school. So the characters may be ooc. It's funny so it makes up for the occ-ness. Please read and enjoy. This started out as a one-shot, but since I got good reviews asking for more I decided to make it one of those drabble things.

Wal-Mart Drabbles

Story one:

It's a Man's World After All

This is just a story about two men. Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes were long-time friends, they met in elementary school and have been friends ever since. They worked in the military, Roy had just been promoted to Colonel and Hughes was a Major. Their lives were perfect, there was only one little problem, they were both married.

"Don't go that way! Roy, you're in the wrong lane!" Hughes yelled as Roy drove down the very small, but very busy, two lane country road. The area surrounding the road was flat and green with grass; a few cows were grazing on it and mooing, it almost looked like they were laughing at the two men in the little blue car. The men were lost and Roy was driving and reading the road map at the same time. Both his hands held the map. He had one foot on the gas pedal, while his other foot was in the air, he had to keep it up like that so his knee could reach and rest on the grey steering wheel, he was using his knee it to steer so his hands were free. He was so busy with the map that he hadn't noticed his little blue car had drifted over into the left lane, which belonged to cars coming in the opposite direction. And a huge 18-wheeler full of God knows what was heading right toward them.

"Give me back the map!" Hughes yelled over the semi's loud horn. He could see the driver of the semi; he was a fat man in a red baseball cap and had a red and white plaid shirt on. His brown hillbilly eyes were full of panic and uncertainty as he yanked on the cord that made his truck horn roar.

"What?" Roy yelled as he tried to hear Hughes over the loud horn.

Hughes reached over and snatched the map from Roy. "That!" he said and pointed dead ahead, the truck was some 50 feet in front of them, coming on very fast.

"Oh," Roy replied like nothing was wrong. He then turned the wheel a little to the right, making the blue car veer to the right and back into his lane. He just missed the semi. Before the truck was out of sight both Hughes and Roy looked in the rearview mirror and saw the man's large hand sticking out the window, he was giving them the finger.

"Why's he doing that?" Roy asked as he looked from the mirror and back to the road. He pushed down on the gas pedal, making them accelerate and go even faster.

"No reason…." Hughes began, "You only almost plowed into him. I'm surprised he didn't have a heart attack. I saw him squeeze his jelly donut so hard all the filling came out."

"I hate White Day," Roy said with a sigh, changing the subject.

"Me too," Hughes replied. They were heading for the mall in the next town. It was White Day and they had to get their wives, Gracia and Riza, a White Day present since they didn't get them a Valentine's Day gift.

"We could always go back home and tell them we forgot," Roy said as Hughes looked over the map. There were so many different little lines, of all sorts of different colors on the map. It was so confusing that he couldn't tell what one was a road and what one was a river.

"No, two reasons. First, we have no idea how to get back home, and reason number two, we did that on Valentine's Day, remember?" Hughes said as he struggled with the map. It would have helped him a lot if it was right side up.

"Yes," Roy grumbled as his mind flashbacked to Valentine's Day. He had forgotten about buying Riza a present. Riza wasn't very happy about it and made Roy sleep outside in the backyard, while Black Hayate, Riza's dog, got Roy's bed along with his wife. "Damn dog…"

"Hey," Hughes said a few minutes later, "I think I see a city." On the horizon they could see images of what they thought, or hoped, were buildings.

"Thank God, no more cows…"

They entered the city about 20 minutes later. Being from the small town of…. it didn't even have a name. Didn't need one really, it was so small you'd be in and out of it before you ever realized you were there, and that it even was a town. It had a total population of 12. Riza, Hughes, Roy, and Gracia made up the biggest part of it, the liveliest part anyway. All their other neighbors were old farmers; they sat around and watched the cows poop for fun.

"This place is huge," Hughes said. His square-shaped glasses glued to the window, absorbing all the sights, the buildings, the cars, the clothes, the homeless men, anything. Hughes pointed to one of the homeless men. "Roy, reason number three we can't go back home empty handed. If we don't get a gift for Gracia and Riza, that's going to be us."

"I know. How are we supposed to find the mall in all this?" Roy asked as he looked around. There were street signs here and there, but they didn't help. He began reading the signs.

"Look Roy, that street is called Beyond Hope," Hughes laughed as Roy stopped at the stoplight, they were the first ones in line, next to them sat a taxi with a foreigner sitting in it, and behind them was a black pick up truck, behind him, many, many other cars of every shape and size. The crosswalk changed to the green 'it's safe to walk now' signal. More then the three times the total population of their town, and the small town next to them, which didn't have a name either, crossed the street.

"Beyond Hope, Full of Hope, Absolutely No Hope, why can't they just have signs that say 'mall this way'!" Roy whined. Really the street names described the boy's situations perfectly. All this was hurting Roy's brain that is until he saw some women in mini skirts cross the busy street. His head shot up as his dark eyes followed the women, not stopping to blink in fear he'd miss a gust of wind that could blow the short skirts up.

"Roy…" Hughes began when he saw Roy's drooling face, "You're married now. What would Riza think?"

"Who knows? Who cares? Not me," Roy replied. The light turned green without Roy even realizing it. He was rudely brought out of his fantasies when the people behind him began blowing their horns, making the people on the streets stare.

"Ok, on to the mall," Hughes said as he looked around. The buildings around them were so tall he had to stick his head out the window and tilt it all the way back to see any sky. He did this, and a second later he brought his head back in the window, white and black bird poop on his glasses.

"That's gross," Roy replied and handed Hughes one of the napkins they had gotten with their fast food meal.

"Let's just find the mall," Hughes said as he wiped off his glasses. Roy drove around the overly large, confusing, concrete, mini skirt filled, hell/heaven town for almost two hours. Being the men they were they didn't bother asking for directions, so it took them forever, and they never did find the mall, just a Super Wal-Mart.

They sat in the big, car-filled parking lot. Both staring out Hughes's window as they sat in Roy's small car. It was a big building, bigger length wise then height wise. It was painted blue with a red border. There were big white capitalized letters centered on the store, it said WAL-MART.

After they searched the parking lot for 15 minutes trying to find an empty space, and almost hitting some pedestrians as well as a white pick up truck, they found one. It was in the very, very back of the lot, more grass, as well as a few trees were set to grow here and there, decorating the area in front of them. Unfortunately there was a wire cart in the middle of their parking spot. It was missing its right front wheel.

"I'll go out and move it," Hughes said as he took off his seatbelt.

"Don't, it's missing a wheel. It will be hard to drag," Roy replied as he stared at the cart, a smirk appeared on his face.

"So? You want to try and find another space?" Hughes asked as he looked over at Roy, he saw the smirk on his face. Oh no….

Roy then pushed the gas pedal to the floor, causing them to shoot forward. They hit the cart hard and sent it flying out of the space and into the grass in front of the lot. Roy slammed on the breaks just before they hit the curb and Hughes grabbed the dashboard before he had a chance to go through the windshield, he did this because he hadn't had a chance to put his seatbelt back on.

"There see, that was easy," Roy said as he took off his seatbelt and ever-so-causally, got out of the small car.

"Right…" Hughes replied catching his breath, he then got out of the car as well. He looked ahead of the blue car and saw the cart lying on its side, quite a distance away in the grass.

"Come on!" he heard Roy yell. Hughes turned and saw Roy already half way through the parking lot. Cars, trucks, and vans painted with rather dark colors parked in straight lines filled the lot.

They walked to the front of the parking lot and stared at the store. "Ok," Hughes said, "Let's get this over with."

"Right," Roy replied as they both took a deep breath and walked to the front doors, after a few minutes of struggling they went to the doors that said 'Enter'. Before that they had tired the doors that had 'Do Not Enter' posted on them, and they couldn't find out why they couldn't get the door open until they saw the sign, which was posted right on the door. The people standing nearby guessed they were in a really big hurry and were too busy to notice.

Once they came within two feet of them, the big glass doors slid open all by themselves. Hughes and Roy just stared, mouths hanging open. "Is it safe? Or possessed?" Roy asked.

"I dunno," Hughes replied. He inched his way over to the door and stretched his leg out, touching the bottom of the door frame with his toe; ready to pull it back at any moment if the door began to close. Roy saw a woman and her little girl walk out of the store, on the side they had tried first, the 'Do not enter' side. They walked through it no problem; the doors didn't close and squish them. Before they got too far they stood and looked at Hughes with curious expressions on their faces.

Roy noticed this and gabbed Hughes's arm, then took him over to the side. He told Hughes to watch the people walking in and out of the store. A big man and his skinny little friend entered the store, a few seconds later an old woman exited.

"It's not crushing them, it must be safe," Roy said as he walked over to the door. It opened and he quickly walked through, nothing happened to him, so Hughes tried, nothing happened to him either.

After a few seconds of calculating and wondering, big smiles appeared on the two men's faces and then began jumping up and down in front of the door. From watching other people, they saw that when you came within a few feet of the door, it opened by itself. They laughed as it opened and closed. Hughes then began running around in circles.

"This is great!" Hughes shouted happily as he ran out through the exit doors and in through the entrance doors. He was having a great time until a man dressed in a blue vest that said 'Wal-Mart Manger' on it, told him to stop or he'd have to leave.

Then they looked around a little more, the part of the store they were currently in was sort of small. It wasn't very colorful and the floor was grey, like the blacktop outside, except it wasn't concrete, it was something else, they didn't know what, nor did they really care. This was the part that held the carts, vending machines, and little kid rides. The real store was through the opening at the end of this little area. Through that opening at the end they could see bight lights, tons of people, signs hanging from the ceiling with yellow smiley faces on them, and lots of isles full of colors, there was also a lot of noise, people laughing, people talking, little kids screaming, and parents screaming back. "It's just like a theme park!" Hughes yelled happily, his face full of joy and he ran off somewhere.

Roy was about to follow him when he was stopped by a short old man, this old man also had a blue vest on. Roy had to squint his eyes as the light bounced off the man's bald head and into his eyes. "Do you want a cart, Sonny?" the old man asked.

"No," Roy replied.

"You're new here, aren't you?" the old man asked, "Well, I know you'll be back," he said and walked away.

"Uh... ok…." Roy said as he watched the old man hobble away. He went to the opening of the store and sat on a stool. Roy then looked around for Hughes.

"Hey, Roy! Look!" he heard Hughes shout. He turned to where Hughes's voice had came from, he saw him. He was by the vending machines; he was riding on one of the little pink ponies that cost a quarter to operate. "I'm in the rodeo!"

Roy had an embarrassed look on his face. He'd play with the automatic doors, but there was no way he'd ride a pony, and it was a pink one too. "Come on, Hughes," Roy said as he shoved his hands in his pocket and walked away with an annoyed look on his face.

"Awwww! But the ride's not over!" Hughes whined.

"Now!"

"Alright, party-pooper," Hughes mumbled as he got off the still moving pony. Once he got off and walked away a little girl with black pigtails jumped on.

When they got into the actual store, they stood and stared, their mouths once again hanging open. They saw all the shopping people and the isles which held everything they ever wanted, but not only that, at the front of the store there was also little mini stores. There was a place to eat, get your hair cut, get your nails done, get pictures taken, even a place to do your taxes. "Roy…. I'm home…" Hughes said as he stared at his new palace.

They walked in, 200, maybe 300 feet at the most, their eyeballs about to pop out of their skulls. They could get all this, there was only one problem… where would they put it all? "Come on," Roy said as he grabbed Hughes's arm and dragged him back toward the front entrance.

"Where are we going?" Hughes asked, his feet stumbling across the white tile floor.

"We're going to see the little old wizard with the bald and shiny head."

"What?" Hughes asked. "Yay, a wizard!"

"Just come on," Roy replied. They reached the front of the store where the little old man was still sitting on his stool; he was waving and smiling at the people entering the store.

"I knew you'd be back," he said with a smirk, making his already unbelievable wrinkly face look even more wrinkled.

"And you were right," Roy replied, "So can we have them? Can we? Can we please?"

"Have what?" Hughes asked as he stared at the old man, now he was the one being blinded. This must be the little old wizard Roy was talking about. I can see the light!

Just as soon as he hobbled away, the little old man returned with two carts, leaving everyone in his wake blind and covering/rubbing their eyes. They were crying, "My eyes! Oh, my eyes! It burns!"

That thing should be registered as a weapon. Roy thought to himself with a smirk after he saw the damage the bald man's head caused.

"Here we go, two carts for you boys, have fun," the little old man said with a smile.

"Thank you, we will," Hughes replied as he and Roy took the carts and pushed them down the big isle. God have mercy on whoever got in their way. No one really did though. They all just stepped out of the way, like two men racing down the isles with carts was an everyday thing.

"Oooohhhhhoooohh... I want this, and this... and one of these… and that... oh I can't forget this," Hughes went on and on as he grabbed things off the cd rack. Roy was over at the games, he was eyeing a PlayStation 2 and some games, and he got them too. After they had charged down the big isle, they came upon the electronics that were in the back of the store. There were four different sections. Against the back wall were the TVs, VCRs, and DVD players, to the left sat the video games in glass cases, before the games came the movies and DVD's, there were servile small isles full of them, all arranged by category, and last but not least, after that were the CD's, they were also in servile small isles and arranged by what type of music they were, and by who sung them.

"Ok," Roy said, his cart loaded down with the PS2, PS2 games, cds, and new TV, and DVDs. "Where to now?"

"Umm..." Hughes said as he thought to himself, things that he wanted flashed trough his mind.

"Well? Hey easy, don't hurt yourself," Roy said as Hughes thought about it. It was a simple question. He didn't want Hughes to think too much and his brain to overload, though he had to admit. It would be really funny to see smoke come from Hughes's ears, like on those Saturday morning cartoons.

"I want to go…" Hughes replied, still thinking.

"Never mind, I'll choose."

"Ok," Hughes replied, "Where to then?"

"I know," Roy began but was cut off by Hughes.

"Wait! We need to stop at the baby clothes! I want to pick Elysia out something!" Hughes interrupted.

"Oh come on… we are supposed to be having fun here," Roy replied with somewhat of a whine.

"Elysia is fun!" Hughes replied and got ready to pull out a photo.

"Don't bother, I've already seen it," Roy replied.

"So," Hughes said.

The next thing Hughes knew, Roy was gone and there was no one to look at his adorable picture. "Party-pooper," he muttered again, "Fine I'll go look for clothes alone then."

"Hmm… this looks nice… yeah... I think I'll get this," Roy mumbled to himself. He had left Hughes to go look at the hair gel. He'd found one he really liked, also the most expensive. Now that he had that checked off his list he went to look at the gloves, to see if he could find any with the flame alchemy circle on them.

After 45 minutes or so, Roy and Hughes had stumbled upon each other. "Did you get what you wanted?" Hughes asked as he looked at Roy's cart. It was loaded down with, what looked like, thousands of items.

"Let me see," Roy replied as he looked over his cart and going over his mental checklist. "Yup, I'm done. How about you?"

"Yup," Hughes replied with a smile. His cart was just as full as Roy's. It was loaded down with manly stuff, as well as baby clothes and toys for Elysia.

"Are we ready to go then?" Roy asked.

"I guess so," Hughes replied. They started walking, pushing their carts all the way, and having to stop on occasion to pick up things that had fallen out. Just before they got to the checkouts Roy stopped dead in his tracks and had an annoyed look on his face.

"Something wrong?" Hughes asked as he walked up next to Roy.

"We forgot about the women," Roy replied with a stern look on his face.

"Oh," Hughes replied. It was silent, then the sound of footsteps came pounding down the store way isle, screaming and yelling was also heard. Roy and Hughes didn't move an inch, still staring straight ahead.

"You'll never take me alive HAHAHA!" a crazy woman yelled as she ran down the isle way. She was young, maybe 20, she had long brown hair that went down to her hips, and it swayed back and forth as she ran… down the isles… completely naked.

"Hey get back here!" two security guards dressed in black, as well as the manger, the same one who yelled at Hughes for playing in the doors earlier, yelled as they chased the mentally ill woman around the store.

"You'll never catch me!" she roared again and ran right behind and passed Hughes and Roy, quickly followed by the men.

Hughes and Roy just stared straight ahead, their faces still stern and serious. Wives Roy, just remember the wives. Roy thought to himself. He took a deep breath, "To the clearance isle! AWAY!" Roy shouted, holding one arm in the air like he was getting ready to charge into battle on horseback.

Then, both he and Hughes put on foot on the bottom of the cart, and pushing themselves along with the other, they hummed the 'High ho Silverware' song.

This continued all the way to the clearance isle. Behind them sat boxes and packages of stuff that had fallen out of their cart, no problem, they'd pick it up on the way back.

On the way there they stopped at the candy isle. Their mouths began to water immediately. Seeing the shelves of all sorts of different candy, gummy bears, skittles, and air heads, it was all there. The best part, both isles, in front and behind them was all candy. It was like they'd walked into a dream and were being surrounded by their favorite sweets. "Look Roy, five pound chocolate!" Hughes said with a little bit of a laugh. On the bottom shelf sat a huge chocolate bar. They each got two, and then they went on their way again, still humming, pushing, and scaring everyone around them.

They made it to the clearance isle all right, and they were the only ones there. This was the isle most women stayed away from, but the men loved it because it was cheap. All that was in the isle were things that were either broken, or were broken at one time, and if it wasn't broken, then no one wanted it.

Roy was at one end of the long, lonely isle; Hughes was at the other end. "Did you find anything!" Hughes called from the end of the rather long isle.

"Yeah!" Roy called back as they walked down the isle and met in the middle.

"What'd you get?" Hughes asked.

"This," Roy replied and held up a toilet plunger. At least it was a toilet plunger now, what it was before not even God could tell you. The cup was sort of a black color; maybe something green had been melted and mixed with the black thing, then molded to look like the cup of a plunger. The stick was yellow and looked like it was glued with to the cup. "Look, it's even the color of the crap!"

"I think Riza will like that, especially since it matches what she's trying to get rid of," Hughes replied as he looked over Roy's gift. "Look what I got," he replied as he pulled a… thing out from behind his back.

"What is that?" Roy asked as he examined Hughes find. It could have been a misshapen bowl, with the middle not cut out, or whatever they did to make the bowl hallow on the inside. It was bumpy on the top and lopsided, it was higher on the right side then the left, the only good thing about was it was only a dollar, and it was a pretty color. Who knew you could mix so many ugly colors together and come out with a pretty one? "Are you sure you want that?" Roy asked as he stared at the alien-like thing.

"Yup," Hughes replied with a smile, "I'm not sure what it is, but Gracia's a smart woman. She'll figure it out."

"Ok… if that's what you want," Roy replied as they pushed their carts over to the checkout lanes, picking up what they dropped before.

"Why is everyone staring at us?" Hughes asked. All the people waiting in line, along with the cashiers, stopped to stare at the two men and their packed carts.

"They must be single," one man said as he looked up from a magazine.

Their wives are going to kill them. Another woman thought as she loaded her vegetables on the black conveyer belt.

"Roy?" Hughes asked again as he stared at all the people, who stared back.

"Don't worry," Roy replied, "They just haven't ever seen men as handsome as us before."

Yeah you just keep thinking that. The woman Roy just passed thought. You just keep thinking that.

The small female cashier's jaw nearly dropped and fell off when she saw the two huge carts heading down her lane. Then she, Hughes, Roy, and some people no one knew helped unload it. That took 25 minutes, then they tried to stuff it all back in. That was a lot harder then it looked, they actually had to wait to exchange Roy's TV because it had fallen out of the cart while they were trying to load the other things and it broke when it hit the floor.

"Push!" Roy said as they pushed on the back of the truck. They had gotten trough the check out lane, across the parking lot, and found their little blue car, without harming anyone, and were now trying to load it all.

"It's not gonna fit," Hughes replied as he pushed on the truck door.

"I think you're right," Roy replied as they stopped pushing and leaned against the side of the car.

"So what do we do?" Hughes asked.

"We'll tie it to the roof," Roy replied and he went to the front of his car, opened the door, leaned in and under the front seat pulled out some blue and yellow bungee cords.

"You keep those in there?" Hughes asked as Roy pulled out the cords then shut the door again.

"Yup, you never know when you might need them," he replied and threw Hughes one of the cords. They took what wouldn't fit in the car and up it on the top, and then they secured it with the cords.

Surprisingly they made it out of the city rather quickly. All Roy had to do was follow the signs that had 'Hope' somewhere printed on them. Before they knew it they were back on the little two lane country road, the cows mooing/laughing even harder now.

"Do you think we bought too much stuff?" Roy asked as he drove. His window was open and the fast moving wind was blowing his bangs around in his face. "I mean, we really didn't spend that much on the girls."

"Aww, don't worry about it. If they ask just say you bought it all with them in mind, and I didn't just spend it all on myself. I bought Elysia some stuff too," Hughes replied as the car sped back to the town that was so small it didn't have a name.

AN: Hey guy, hope you liked it. Since this is now a drabble it will be more then one mini story (if that's not really what a drabble is then I apologize). Sorry it was so long, but people who read the first version of it said it needed to be longer and more detail. That's what I did and this is how it turned out. In the next story Gracia and Riza get back at Roy and Hughes for their crappy gifts when they take them back to Wal-Mart and show them how they are really supposed to shop. See you in the next chapter bye bye!