Decay

"Why do we all have to come?" Sam moaned as Spencer pulled into a parking spot in front of Food Fox, the local grocery store.

"Because," Carly said from the front seat. "I need to get food for our little movie night tonight, and I'm sick and tired of either having one of you text me to get something just as I'm about to leave the store and having you think up something else you want after I get home and making me go out to the store again! This way, you can all pick out what you want in one trip."

"This isn't my usual grocery store, though," Gibby frowned. "I like my food from Mr. Hooper's store down the street because Mr. Hooper always lets me have free samples of his special eggplant."

"Oh yeah, that's the guy who sells me the melons for my smoothies real cheap!" T-Bo said.

"And there special pork chops are to die for," Sam added.

"Yeah, my mom really likes Mr. Hooper's too," Freddie said. "Even though Mr. Hooper probably hates her…"

"You know, Mr. Hooper's store really is great," Spencer said. "The nice lady at the bakery always tells me I look like a sweet young lad. Hey, why didn't we go there instead of here?"

"Because, Food Fox is just as good as Mr. Hooper's," Carly said. "And we're here already, so we're not going to drive all the way to another store just because you all have some sort of weird obsession with it!"

"She just doesn't want to go because she spilled hot mustard on Mr. Hooper's son while she was trying to flirt with him," Sam grinned.

"Sam!" Carly hissed.

"I don't really like hot mustard," Gibby said.

"Look, let's just go into the store already," Carly said, opening her car door. "So we can get in, get out, and then get back home where we can spend an hour arguing over which movie to watch."

"Fine," Sam said. "Hey, any chance of you pushing me in one of those carts, Freddud?"

"There is no chance," Freddie said.

"Ugh, but I'm dating you!" Sam moaned.

"But Sam, I pushed you all around the store last week when we came here for our date," Freddie pointed out.
"Wait," Spencer frowned. "You two come here on dates?"

"To a grocery store?" T-Bo said.

"Yup," Freddie sighed. "They were giving away a bunch of lunch meat samples, so Sam wanted to come here instead of spending the night watching the new robot movie I got; Cyborgs and their Cyborg-Dogs."

"So, you two got dressed up and came here?" Spencer said, still clearly astounded by this.

"Stop trying to work out the logic behind what they do," Carly said. "Believe me, you'll only wind up giving yourself a migraine."

"You know, my mom used to push me in one of those shopping carts," Gibby said. "Man, those were the days…"

"Aw, remaining your childhood?" Carly smiled.

"No, last week," Gibby said.

"Right…" Carly frowned. "Well, let's just get shopping. So far, I have 2 liters of Whaoo Punch, chips, dip, pretzels, frozen pizzas, meat and vegetarian, chocolate chip ice cream and a box of Fat Cakes on my shopping list. Now, you have until we pick up the last item to add anything else because we're not coming back again."

"Wow, someone's bossy," T-Bo said as the group walked into the store.

"Alright, one bag of chips," Carly said, stopping at a display of tortilla chips and tossing a bag into the cart. "Now we just need some dip-"

"Hold on, reduced fat chips?" Sam frowned, picking up the bag. "Carly!"

"Baby, just let it go," Freddie said. "They don't taste any different than the regular ones, plus they're healthy for you."

"If I wanted to be healthy, I'd eat a bag of spinach," Sam said.

"Sam, we go through this with everything," Carly sighed. "Are we really going to have another incident like we did with bubble gum the other day?"

"They make low-fat bubble gum?" Gibby asked. "Yes! Finally! The gum company must've finally gotten my emails."

"You know they also make low-fat toothpaste too," Spencer said. "Because apparently, each time you brush your teeth, you consume about three calories."

"Shut up!" T-Bo said. "So all this time I've been brushing, I've really just been getting chunky?"

"You guys come on, we still have a lot of shopping to do," Freddie said.

"Thank you, Freddie," Carly said. "At least someone isn't obsessed with fat content."

"Good," Freddie said. "So let's just get the regular, fatty, chips and be on our way."

"Wait, what?" Carly frowned as Freddie replaced the bags in the cart. "I thought you were on my side about this!"

"I was," Freddie said. "But, come on, if you had a hot girlfriend, would you say no to her?"

"Thank you, baby," Sam said, kissing him on the cheek.

"Oh, you're crafty, Puckett," Carly said, narrowing her eyes at her best friend.

"Well, if we're going to be unhealthy savages tonight, I'm getting myself some fruit," Carly said, steering the cart towards the produce section.

"That's perfect, I can stock up on some smoothie materials," T-Bo said.

"Smoothies don't have fruit in them," Gibby said, chuckling at the man's cluelessness.

"Um, Gibby? What do you think Berry Blitz's and Melon Might's have in them?" Sam asked.

"I don't know, fructose?" Gibby shrugged.
"What's fructose?" Spencer asked.

"It's a fancy word for sugar," Freddie said.

"No, wait, I thought that was glucose," Spencer said.

"That too," Freddie explained. "See, there are-"

"Okay, okay, I've got my strawberries!" Carly said, quickly putting a carton of strawberries into the cart. "We can go and find something else now."

"Hold up, you picked wonked up strawberries," T-Bo said, examining the fruit. "See, you need to get some like these, because they'll decay at a much slower rate, so you can enjoy them longer."

"Wow, you really know your fruit," Spencer said, impressed.

"What? I'm not all about putting strange foods on sticks that really shouldn't be on sticks," T-Bo said.

"Well, at least they don't make strawberries with different fat contents," Carly said. "So, can we just go finish shopping?"

"Oh, right," Freddie said. "Hey, can we grab some peanut butter while we're here?"

"Oh yeah, and jelly?" Sam said.

"What? Are you two going to make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?" Carly asked.

"No," Sam frowned. "See, we do this thing where-"

"I don't think I really want to know what you two are going to do," Carly said. "All I want to do is finish shopping. So for the millionth time, can we please finish up?"

"You did not ask us a million times," Gibby said.

"Gibby!"

"Oh, hey, can we go to the lobster tank?" Spencer asked.

"Why?" Carly asked. "Why do you want to go see lobsters? You're terrified of shellfish!"

"Used to be!" Spencer said. "My new doctor's helping me conquer my fear of them. Which is why I brought special lobster food with me so I could go feed them and try not to imagine them leaping from their tanks onto my beautiful face."

"Oh man, did I have a dream about lobsters last night," T-Bo said. "I dreamt they were in some courtroom, dancing around everywhere!"

"Hey, wait," Sam said, turning to Spencer. "How do you have money to pay for a fancy lobster doctor, but you can't afford the good ice cream anymore?"

"Um, I-" Spencer started.

"Yeah," Freddie said, crossing his arms. "I depended on that stuff, you know. I only have my mom's sugarless, soy, vitamin enriched ice cream to eat now!"

"Yeah man, I have to eat that pathetic excuse for a dairy desert too now," T-Bo said.

"He's hiding the ice cream for himself, aren't you?" Sam said.

Gibby gasped. "That's atrocious!"

"I needed it!" Spencer defended. "I had a rough week! First Kilanya got kicked off America Sings, then my massage got canceled, and the girl who I accidently ran over blocked me from Splashface!"

"So you made us eat jank ice cream because your life's a big mess?" T-Bo exclaimed.

"Look, it's no big deal," Spencer said. "I'll buy you guys some more right now! Carly, remind me to get the ice cream when we get to the freezer isles, okay? Carly?"

The five turned around to a display of apples where Carly was browsing.

"Carly! What are you doing?" Spencer asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I know you people," Carly said, smiling at them. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some items to purchase. Have a nice day, though."

"I-She ditched us!" Freddie frowned.

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Gibby said.

"I don't know, I thought we were being delightful shopping companions!" T-Bo said.

"So did I," Spencer nodded.

"Great," Sam sighed.

"Relax, I'm sure Carly's not actually mad at us," Freddie said, putting his arm around his girlfriend. "She probably just needed to have some 'quiet-time'."

"No, it's not that," Sam said. "She's going to pick out the low-fat versions of everything."

..

AN-Shout outs to anyone who knows what show the Dancing Lobsters bit comes from!