A/N: Hi, all! This chapter is...well, one I wasn't planning on writing for another month or so. But then I got a request *grin*.
FairysGift: i love this fic!
Me: Thank you! ^^ It's fun to write; difficult coming
up with ideas is all. I'm glad that you like it!
I have a suggestion for you.
Me: At this point I was bouncing. Suggestions are
always welcomed; craved, even.
I unfortunately work at Tesco in Glasgow
Me: *nod* A really good friend of mine worked at a grocery store...very, very difficult place to work, I hear. Kudos for sticking it out.
and was wondering if you could do a chapter about the trouble Yami would have buying food on his own.
Me: *suddenly evil gleam enters the author's eyes* *happy grin*
You don't have to do it if you don't want to but i think it would be funny to learn how Yami would handle seafood and all the different kinds of wines from all the different countries. Please update soon.
Me: I hadn't even thought of Yami grocery shopping. Which is odd, really; I have him driving now, and most people learn grocery shopping before struggling with cars. Hopefully I've done the idea justice. Anyway, this update wouldn't have been done without your request, so this chapter shall be known as FairysGift's chapter ^^ (Well, part of it was an idea my old chemistry teacher gave me, but I sincerely doubt he'll ever read this fic...)
WARNING: This chapter may cause you to disown hamburgers. Not daunted? Read on, and enjoy!
Yami Yugi Moves Out!
Chapter Eleven
October 1:
Was sitting around this morning. It's Sunday; no work, no volunteer stuff, no promotional Duel Monsters camp (yet). And then Edith comes out of her room. (It was pre-dawn at the time. This is the woman who doesn't loke getting up before noon. Even had someone come work at her shop for two hours every morning while she slept in. That didn't last long, but you see what I mean.)
So I looked up at her, in her huge pink bathrobe and gray bunny slippers (think they were white once, like Yugi's white towels used to be) and, being a kind and concerned roommate/friend, asked what was wrong.
Big mistake. She was like a piranha, and my voice was like a deer sticking its leg in her pond. Except, she did the attack in a sweet-old-lady sort of way.
She moved two steps closer to me, but our apartment's not that big, so it was kind of intimidating. Startling at least.
"Yami," she said, and sounded like she was going to say more, but then she didn't.
"Yes?" I was sort of uneasy, so my voice was in what could be called "Magnanimous Leader" mode. Defense mechanism.
She took a deep breath, drummed her fingers on the sofa. "Did you eat dinner last night?"
Had I? Gave it some thought. "Hmm...I ate those bread crusts. In the Ziploc bag; you know, the ones Ruth left with us for turkey stuffing?" I kind of hoped she'd get to the point before the commercials ended. I was half-convinced to buy this cutlery set-one that is supposedly able to cut through junkyard cars. They were even going to have a demonstration.
Edith gave me her sweetest Could-Be-Made-Of-Mollasses smile. "Well, surely you've noticed that we're running out of food. Why, unless you can think of a way to make us meals out of the baking soda in the fridge and the creamed radishes in the cupboard, we're not going to be eating anything at all!"
From what she'd said, I sort of thought she was giving me a challenge, and I began thinking up ways to cook old baking soda and radish soup.
Then she went on, "I'm afraid Beth's daughter's niece has chicken pox, so I won't have time to shop while I'm taking care of them. Yami, I need you to go shopping."
Usually, Edith handles the stores, but Yugi took me with him whenever he had to go, so I had an idea of what to do. Besides, I needed to see if they carried anything I could use for my Fourth Period to mummify their cats. So I nodded.
Edith beamed and shoved a list at me. "Oh, wonderful! These are some of the things I need, but of course you should get the things you need while you're there, and if you get anything you think we can share, go right ahead. Just...be careful. I'll pay you back, but I'm on a budget."
I nodded again, knowingly. In Egypt, I wasn't just some gorgeous idol; I was *also* very involved with keeping tabs on the national budget.
Her list was simple enough: Skim milk (ugh; I'm a 2% man myself), Camomile shampoo, lavender conditioner, wheat bread, and three cans of tomato soup. Had plenty to buy for myself still, but figured if Edith was up so early she was proably really hungry and wanted food as soon as possible.
Felt guilty, then. Should probably have offered her a few of the bread scraps last night, but I am her elder and therefore entitled.
Forget informercials. I had to go shopping.
So an hour later I'd made my way to the Mega Mart. Much, much bigger store than the one Yugi goes to. Like...100 times bigger, or it looked that way once I was inside. Except the employees. Those seemed a few times smaller than Yugi's Store's.
Could just have been the looming ceilings, the towers of toilet paper, the...unreachable top shelves. Made everyone seem almost my size, which you'd think would be nice but is actually kind of frightening.
Anyway. Grabbed a double-sized shopping cart and headed down the nearest aisle, which turned out to be full of makeup. Very long. Very pink, also, but it led into the shampoo/conditioners so I kept going.
Nearly fell over when I finally found a Chamomile Shampoo bottle and checked the price. "Bottle" is an understatement, actually. "Tub" or "Keg" or "Barrell" more accurate.
Kept moving, eyeing the price tags and watching the numbers climb and fall. $20...$3. Not that the cheap ones were what I needed, but they were looking more tempting every second.
Took the cheapest one for myself, and then the cheapest Chamomile and Lavendar tubs for Edith.
Went through this with every item on the list, by the way. Plus I kept getting distracted by things I hadn't thought of or even wanted while I was at home. Like olives, and pickles. And water chestnuts and squiggly straws. (How do those last two things go together, anyway? They were in the same aisle. Like I'll be drinking my water chestnuts. Right. Stupid way to advertise.) (Ended up getting them both anyway. Can't figure out why, now.)
Mega-Cart was almost full by the time I got the last thing on Edith's list (milk), and I hadn't even reached the cereal aisle yet.
Not that there *was* just a cereal aisle. Instead they have cereal *aisles*, plural. Two and a half of them. I hadn't even known that many cereal kinds existed-there's Cheerios and oatmeal, right?
Wrong.
I can't even name all of them, because some of the boxes were in foreign languages. I bought one of the foreign boxes out of curiosity.
Couldn't find my Ceerios, though. Found a box called "Cheery-Qs" though. That's when I got fed up with these little changes in price and name and color, and began sampling the products. There's a very subtle difference between Cheerios and Cheery-Qs; Cheerios have a very faint oat flavor. Cheery-Qs could knock you over with it.
Went into the bathroom to test the shampoos then. Had to use the electric hand drier over and over to d ry my hair as I hadn't thought to bring a towel. Found no difference between my shampoo (which was priced at 3 dollars) and Edith's ($8).
That's when I felt cheated. Also when I got an idea.
I went back out under the humming fluorescent lights, amid rampaging kids, and hunted out the last things I needed. Plus maybe one or two more things; but those Oreos were just sitting there, like I should have put them on my list to begin with. Like I was an idiot for thinking I'd get out of the store without them. Same thing happened again when I saw some hamburger buns on sale, but worse, because then I had to find hamburger meat, which was next to impossible.
Some sort of conspiracy; make us want to buy something when it's on sale, then raise the price on anything else you need, which makes you want to buy more of the sale item to make up for it, even though the sale item is next to useless without the Expensive Item. Or maybe that's just me.
And what's the difference between the hamburger meat packs anyway? Some is more expensive, some is less, like the shampoo. Is one cow better than the other? You can't even see what part of the animal it used to be. Am I supposed to take a cheap price to mean I'm buying what used to be a cow's tail?
Why can't they just say on the package "this was a rump: or "this was a left nostril, before we ground it up to look like the better meat." ...Well, actually, think I answered my own question there. ...And now that I recheck the package I bought, they might write Pre-Grinding meat info, butyou'd have to get a microscope to read anything on the pack besides the price.
Hamburger is stupidly difficult. Need to break Yugi of his addiction to them.
...What was I saying? Oh, the Sales Conspiracy.
I got some bananas, too, because they were half off. So was the beer, I found, and tried to get some to reming me of Egypt**, but even Yugi's drivers license wasn't good enough for them.
Oh, well, it doesn't taste the same anyway. Nearly spat it out all over myself when I finally sampled it, while I was putting it back. I was going to continue tasting the different kinds, hoping I'd find one sort of Egyptian, but decided not to. Another time, for sure. When I have Edith with me. They won't refuse a wrinkled woman like her.
Why they refused me is a mystery.
Anyway, the beer was the first thing they rang up, and so I didn't get to use my Plan right off, as I had to put the drinks back. Had to get back in line after that, then wait for a half hour for everyone ahead of me to pay and keep the line moving. And all that was done with my Game Face on.
Good thing I've put so much work into perfecting it. I've been told my first Game Face was actually psychotic looking. Now it's more of a Poker Face with Don't-Cheat-Me menace, and occasionally a Confident Smirk when I'm about to turn things around.
The clerk was nervous when he looked up at me. Took it as a good sign, and picked one of my items off the moving rubber belt on the counter.
I held up my 2% milk and said, "This jug is three dollars. That is outrageous. I won't go above a dollar fifty"
The clerk blinked, looked at the milk, opened and shut his mouth a few times, and blinked again. So I added a glare. He spoke, "I don't think I can do that..." I upped the glare a bit. "But let me call my manager!"
Gave him a nod and sat back to wait. When The Manager came, I stated my offer again, this time pointing out floaters in the milk.
There weren't any, actually, but when I was Pharaoh I could have run around naked and convinced people I was wearing a neon orange evening gown. It's just a matter of sounding so confident they'll quake in their boots.
The Manager studied the milk a bit too closely, so I pointed more viciously to throw her off guard. "See? There!"
"Oh...Oh! Ah, yes." She nodded to the clerk. "Give him the milk for half off."
I nodded, and grabbed up Edith's milk. "Now, this might as well be water. It's certainly not worth two dollars. I'll give you fifty cents, and that's being generous."
She'd been turning to go, and nearly fell over. "What?"
I shook the milk. "Fifty. Cents. This isn't milk, it's snow runoff!"
"Sir, it's skim milk!"
I shook my head and glared again. "You disgrace the name of milk if you think that's what this is! Fifty cents, that's my final offer!"
She took a deep breath, and nodded again to the clerk. Her face was red, but she waited to see if I had anything else to add.
I did.
This time I showed her the shampoos. "This one is eight dollars, and it works exactly like this three dollar shampoo. I'll give you six bucks for both."
Her eyes narrowed. Her hands kept making fists. Finally she took the bottles from me, opened and smelled them both, and handed them back. "They're good shampoos. I'll let them both go for ten dollars."
I laughed once. "Ten dollars? I'll give you eight-fifty."
"*Nine* fifty."
"Eight sixty."
"Nine twenty-five."
"Eight eighty."
"Nine dollars!"
I paused. "Deal."
Did this with every item, and got home way later than expected. Edith called me a "Bargain Hunter". Am going to show her my secret next time we go shopping.
Still haven't found anything to mummify the cats with, though. Actually, I haven't found any cats to mummify either.
October 2:
I'm new to the idea of overnight delivery. I ordered the cutlery set, and it got here this afternoon. I found it after I got home from work.
I had the urge to use the knives to cut through the counters, just like they did on TV, but I have a special plan for these. Since Edith's spending the night at Beth's daughter's niece's house (chicken pox is deadly for some, and very contagious. Probably not to spirits, but I don't want to take chances and was very supportive when she said she'd rather be there to help through the night), I have all night to carry it out.
Ah, the lumber's here with the construction crew. Will write more later tonight.
3 o'clock in the morning...technically October 3
The crew worked all afternoon getting the barn set up. Had them set it up around back where Edith says they tried to put a swimming pool in before funding got cut. Now it's just a big hole in the ground with some weeds and grass growing in it. Big enough to hide a small one-stall stable, though.
I went to the zoo with my cutlery set and a rope. Climbing onto the fence was easy; lassoing a camel wasn't too hard, either, since they were all asleep. I chose the largest, sleekest of them. That's not saying much, though, These camels are soft, have spent their lives in a nice temperate zone, away from the desert and hard riding and tough training. Even the best looking of them was fat and its fur was matted.
Is matted, actually. Haven't had a chance to groom it yet. Will assign that task as punishment to one of the students, I think.
So I hopped back down off the fence. Walked up to the lock. Took out a nice, small paring knife. It made it all the way through the first padlock before the blade snapped. Good thing I've got that lifetime warranty. Hope there's nothing in it that says I can't use my knives to break into something.
Paring knife was then useless. I carefully wrapped it up and put it back in my bag. Then I took out...a steak knife. These were a bit bulkier, and harder to slide up against the metal. Plus it made a sharper grating noise that made my teeth grind together. Not pleasant.
When the second padlock was off, I tried to unwind the chains from the fence. No such luck. Not that I tried that hard; I still had six other kinds of knife to try out. I used them, eagerly. There wasn't much left of the chains when I was done.
I walked in and grabbed my camel, having to lure it out with a fresh carrot. A few of its buddies followed along, and I had to push them back into the cage and then use a piece of rope to tie the gate shut again.
But now I finally have a camel for when Yugi decides he wants his car back. Which I'm thinking will be soon; he's coming to visit and I can't easily hide the car. He's got radar for it or something. He can find it in a used car lot, in a warehouse parking lot, in Disney Land.....
Glad I'm prepared, though.
**Beer was the staple drink in Ancient Egypt.