12:00 PM
The automatic door closed deftly behind him as Jack slid into the Safeway, clutching the plastic bag of coupons protectively to his chest. Behind him, the flustered seagull shook itself and flew away, probably to poke at another helpless victim. Jack watched it go, glowering, though inside he felt the warm fuzzies of triumph over evil. That seagull had made chase, but so had Jack. And now Jack was safe inside the store.
Ooh, it was a good feeling.
Several young mothers stared at him. He smiled sheepishly at them, then continued into the main area of the store.
He first saw that they were setting out the free sample stations. Ooh. There was nothing more he loved than free samples. And he never got to properly eat when saving the world or running across huge parking lots from seagulls. He helped himself to a plastic cup of Cheerios from a smiling saleslady. Yum. Cheerios. You could eat Cheerios with milk, or just as a snack.
Speaking of which… he took a box of Cheerios. Now to retrieve his laundry stuff. Ah, yes. Behind the cookie dough ice cream in the frozen food aisle. Still crunching away at his Cheerios, he walked to that particular aisle of frozen food wonders, past the veggies and the pizzas to the ice cream.
He stopped.
They appeared to be college students, two young poor females with a cart full of off-brand food products.
He had picked off-brand fabric softener. He gasped. It was only too clear what they wanted.
His off-brand fabric softener that would make his clothes smell like a tropical island.
"Stop!" He yelled over the announcement of a sale on toaster pastries.
The girls froze as they carried out that huge thing of cookie dough ice cream. How could girls eat that much ice cream?
He marched over, wishing suddenly that he had his gun. That would show these punk college students not to mess with his laundry supplies. He could even see the laundry stuff now. Any moment they would notice it and they would take it. And then were would he be? He really had no desire to chase people all over the Safeway parking lot.
And then one of the girls rammed the shopping cart into this stomach.
He stumbled back, the wind knocked out of him.
"Pervert!" the other girl cried, stomping her very heavy shoe into his toes.
And then, before Jack even hit the ground, they were gone.
12:06 PM
It took him a few minutes to catch his breath again. Wow, but that had hurt. But he was Jack Bauer, CTU. Nothing could faze him. He climbed to his feet, not without excruciating pain, and grasped the door of the freezer.
Yes. Hope still remained. They had not touched his now-frozen things of mountain fresh detergent and island breeze fabric softener. But, good grief, they were cold. Not like his Cheerios.
His Cheerios? He looked around in horror. They were gone. Damn it! Those girls must have snatched them after he had attacked them.
And all he had wanted were some tasty Cheerios!
What a bad day this was becoming. At least he still had his coupons. He clutched them and the laundry supplies to his chest and headed for check-out.
Bleh. It was like the parking lot. People at every lane. He did not have the time to wait.
"Jack!" Chloe, with two bags of groceries, waved at him from the door. Well, she was ready to go.
A kid who probably should have been in school finished paying for a candy bar at one of those self-check out things. Hmm. Jack walked over and set his stuff down, then stared at the screen.
There were two things to push. One for English, one for Spanish. Jack knew both fluently. He began to sweat. Which one was he supposed to push?
12:10 PM
He finally decided to go with the English language option. Next, the crazy machine wanted him to scan his own groceries.
Oh, boy. How was he supposed to do that? He picked up the detergent and examined it for something, anything, that he could scan. And there it was. A barcode. Wow. Brilliant. A barcode.
He happily scanned it over the machine. It beeped and displayed the product and corresponding price on the screen. He was doing good. Then he placed it into the ready plastic bag.
And that was when it began.
"Unknown item in the bagging area", the machine demanded via a woman's cool voice. "Unknown item in the bagging area."
Jack jumped back from the machine, panicked. What was he supposed to do? He did not know, but he had to do something. He grabbed the detergent.
But it just kept happening. "Unknown item in the bagging area." Was this thing going to sic guards on him? Oh, to heck with it. He shoved the detergent into the bag and ran the detergent over the scanner.
The lady shut up and identified the price and his total. He slipped in a ten dollar bill and collected his change. Peacefully.
Then he grabbed his groceries and began to walk away.
"Unknown item in the bagging area."
Damn it!
He darted to Chloe and the door before anyone could do anything. He felt like a criminal.
"What was that all about?" Chloe asked as she sprinted after him out the door.
"Don't ask."
12: 21 PM
Chloe sped the car into high gear and set off out of the parking lot, the seagulls still watching them. "Sorry, Jack! I didn't think they would really attack you!"
Jack grunted and wiped the blood from his cheek. "I told you. They're scary."
"Yeah, well, I'm still posting this picture of you on the parking lot ground covered in seagulls up at work."
"I'll just tear it down."
"No, you won't. Now, where do you want to go for lunch?"
"Lunch?" Jack echoed. "What lunch?" He had just eaten a plastic thing of Cheerios.
"Lunch, Jack. It is now 12:22 PM, which is kind of the lunch hour. Normal people eat lunch around this time."
He took that in, impressed. Wow, what a concept. "The same time every day?"
"Yep. What are you hungry for?"
Jack thought about it. He had never been to lunch with anyone, at least not for a few years. "Can we go through the Wendy's drive-through?"
Chloe looked at him with disgust. "No, we are not going through the drive-through. We are two friends out on errands. You only get fast food from a drive-through when you are in a hurry. We can certainly stop somewhere for lunch."
"So… you want to go inside Wendy's?"
She rolled her eyes. "I don't want fast food. I want to go to a decent restaurant where I can sit down. Where do you like to eat out?"
Jack didn't eat out at decent restaurants. He was utterly bewildered. "I want to go through a drive-through and order a hamburger."
"No, Jack. We are not going to do that because I am the driver. Listen, here's what we're going to do. I know this place that is a salad buffet."
"Salad?"
"Yes, salad. It's healthy and you can make whatever you want from it. Please tell me that you don't mind salad."
Jack thought about it. He loved salad, actually. Salad was delicious. He liked the light, crisp lettuce that glistened with moisture and the cool vegetables and the creamy dressing…
Chloe smiled. "You're drooling. Let's go get a salad."
12:39 PM
Jack sprinkled a light shower of grated tofu over his salad. It was a delicious-looking salad, created with romaine lettuce, red-leafed lettuce, tomatoes, and grilled salmon. Next, he was going to add some almonds.
Mm, almonds.
He carried it back to the table where Chloe was already sipping at her Diet Coke. Jack had also ordered a Diet Coke. The other kind was not healthy when one was needing to outrun terrorists.
"That's a nice looking salad you have there," Chloe complimented.
"Thank-you. I just wish they had a nice raspberry vinaigrette here. That would perfect it."
He didn't understand why Chloe stared at him. "Good for you, Jack. Y'know, they do have pizza here as well."
"They do?" He liked pizza almost as much as he liked salad. He leapt up from his chair and ran to the buffet. Sure enough, there were little slices of pizza covered in veggies. Yum. He took one and brought it back to the table.
"Good," Chloe said. "You eat pizza. You were beginning to scare me."
"How so?"
"Nothing."
They ate in silence.
Then Jack asked Chloe a question that had been bothering him for a long time. "Chloe, can I ask you a question?"
(That was not the question that had been bothering him for a long time).
"Sure, Jack." She took another bite of her salad.
"After your divorce, how come you kept your married name?"
"O'Brian isn't my married name."
Jack frowned. "It's not?"
"I never changed it. O'Brian is my maiden name."
"But Morris' last name is O'Brian…"
"Coincidence."
"You just happen to have the same last name?"
"Yep."
That was pretty cool. He returned to eating his salad.
12:50 PM
Jack was getting up for his fourth helping of salad when it happened. He was deciding if he wanted to get romaine or the spring mix, and the waitress dropped her tray of plates.
Jack instantly set down his plate and dashed across the restaurant floor. He hadn't heard the bullet, but there could have been a silencer. Or it was a new kind of weapon. Maybe the waitress had been stunned.
"No one panic!" he shouted. "No one panic!"
Chloe moaned and covered her face with her hands.
She was scared. Jack could understand that. He would take over here. That was his job. He scanned the area for the perpetrator. The nice elderly couple on the side. The group of nurses. The other waitresses taking a break.
None of them fit the profile. But they could be moles. Clearly this restaurant was a set-up.
"It's okay!" the waitress called. "I just slipped."
Chloe dragged Jack back into his seat. "Don't embarrass me like that again!"
He glared at her. "That waitress was faking. She's up to something."
"And you're an idiot. I bet you didn't even use your coupons today."
"Of course I…" He slapped his forehead. He had not used his coupon for the detergent.
And he had forgotten the eggs.