Disclaimer: Not ours, as per usual. :-) We're just borrowing.

Weed's Author Note: Well guys, it's almost been a year, which is about how often Puff and I get to see each other. We were not together when this was written though, as we got to distracted the last time we visited. Puff assures me no alcohol was involved in the writing of this. Side note, does anyone reading this attend DragonCon? You should totally message me if you do. Just saying. (I'll stop saying now and let you get to what you really came for.)

Puff hates whipped cream. Puff went to McDonalds this evening and ordered a Frappe. Puff was told they were out of whipped cream thus could not put any on the top of Puff's Frappe. Puff naturally viewed this amazingly positive twist of fate as a sign that she must begin work on a new chapter of The Jedi Council.

So after sending Weed a picture of her cheese grater, Priscilla, Puff began writing. (A cheese grater, guys. I'm in the middle of DragonCon and Puff is sending me pictures of cheese graters. What the hell?)

Puff likes talking in the third person because it makes the voices in her head happy.

And now The McDonalds Is Out Of Whipped Cream Thus Cannot Top Your Frappe With It But That's Totally Awesome With You Because You Hate Whipped Cream Anyway Gods present for your reading pleasure…

The Jedi Council Part 20: Grocery Shopping 101

To say Mace Windu was annoyed would be the equivalent of saying that Japanese tree squirrels were only kind of cute. An understatement of epic proportions.

Why was Mace in such a state you ask? Have you read the other 19 installments of this series? Why is Mace usually in this state?

Qui-Gon Jinn of course!

What was Qui-Gon whining about today? We're getting to that! Gosh you're impatient!

"Masters, I cannot fathom why the cafeteria workers thought this was a good idea." Qui-Gon complained, "Their complete disregard for the health and wellbeing of the Jedi in this temple is deeply troubling. If we let this incident go without reprimand, I fear the worst is yet to come."

RAITMOTS: Kudos to the thesaurus for giving Puff the word 'reprimand'. Ain't heard that word since the 'Part of Your World' song in The Little Mermaid!

"Masters, I beg you to take action and correct this great injustice." Qui-Gon finished his speech, folded his note cards, tucked them away in his robe, and folded his hands as he waited for the Masters' response to his desperate plea.

Ki-Adi-Mundi took in a slow deep breath in an attempt to compose himself. He was so furious you could fry an egg on his head. Heck, you could probably fry a dozen eggs! Dude got a big head!

"Qui-Gon, just to clarify." Ki-Adi-Mundi said with a calmness that amazed the other masters, "The 'great injustice' for which you want the cafeteria workers to be reprimanded is that they used regular spinach instead of baby spinach in the salads yesterday?"

"Precisely." Qui-Gon replied.

"Okay, first off, how the crap could you tell the difference seeing as how they chop the spinach for the salads?" Eeth wanted to know.

Qui-Gon opened his mouth to respond.

"Nevermind!" Ki-Adi-Mundi interrupted, "We really don't need to know that. Let's not drag this out any longer. Let's just cut to the chase here. Qui-Gon, when you spoke to the cafeteria workers, did they have a reason for using regular spinach instead of baby spinach?"

"Yes." Qui-Gon replied.

"And what was that reason?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.

"They said there was an E. coli outbreak on the other side of the planet and it was traced back to their produce supplier's baby spinach. All of the baby spinach had to be recalled thus they were unable to acquire any for the salads yesterday." Qui-Gon explained.

"Now to me that sounds like a pretty reasonable excuse for them to not have baby spinach." Ki-Adi-Mundi said, "You don't want everyone here to get E. coli do you, Qui-Gon?"

"Of course not!" Qui-Gon answered quickly, "But that is entirely beside the point. Should their usual produce supplier be unable to provide them with baby spinach they should be able to find a supplier who can."

"They probably didn't have time to do that." Adi spoke up, "They needed to make the salads. They didn't have time to search for another supplier and place another order."

"That shows nothing but laziness and apathy." Qui-Gon disagreed, "If the cafeteria workers truly cared about our health, they would've found a way to acquire baby spinach. Furthermore, they should have a back-up plan in place in the event of situations like this."

"They did have a back-up plan!" Mace scoffed, "They used regular spinach!"

"Not a suitable substitute." Qui-Gon objected.

"Would you rather have had NO SALAD AT ALL?!" Depa borderline screamed.

"Down, Depa." Ki-Adi-Mundi said calmly, placing a restraining hand on Adi's shoulder.

No one had any idea how Ki-Adi-Mundi was keeping his cool. Maybe he'd been hitting the painkillers again like he did in Part 4.

"Qui-Gon." Ki-Adi-Mundi continued, "You have given us all of your information. Presented your case as it were. Now I'm going to share a little piece of information with you. Regular spinach has fewer calories than baby spinach. And it contains fiber which baby spinach does not. Which would actually give regular spinach a slightly higher nutritional value than baby spinach. But overall these differences are so minute they don't really make a difference."

The other Jedi's jaws dropped and they stared at Ki-Adi-Mundi in shocked awe. Ki-Adi-Mundi smirked proudly. He minored in Nutrition in college. He was convinced this moment was the sole reason he'd chosen to do so. Fate and destiny and The Will of the Force, all that crap.

RAITMOTS: I legit researched spinach nutritional values for this. If I had showed that much commitment in college I'd be making a lot more money right now. (But probably working with fewer fuzzy feathery animls.)

Qui-Gon scrunched his face up in annoyed thought.

"I suppose I will forgive the spinach substitution this time. But next time I cannot promise any leniency." Qui-Gon said, "I will be monitoring the cafeteria workers very closely. I will report my findings to you every Thursday. Good day."

And with that, Qui-Gon bowed and left the chamber.

"Master Yoda, can I be excused from the chamber every Thursday until the end of time?" Adi asked.

"Nope." Yoda replied, "Suffer through it together we will."

At that moment the phone in the chamber started ringing. Yoda answered it.

"Hello?" He said then listened to the person on the other line, "What? Why?" He paused again, "But resolved the issue we have." Pause, "If feel that way you truly do, so be it." He hung up the phone.

The other masters were staring intently at him.

"The cafeteria manager that was." Yoda told them, "Angry about Qui-Gon's complaint he is."

He continued in his sullen 'Begun the Clone Wars have' voice.

"On strike the cafeteria staff has gone." He said.

"But who's gonna make food?" Shaak asked, "Jedis gotta nom!"

The stupidest thing ever written, ladies and gentlemen!

"Make the food we will." Yoda replied, "Time to hire and train new staff before breakfast tomorrow we do not."

"Can't we just order pizza and Chinese takeout until the strike is over?" Oppo suggested.

"Oh yeah there's no way Qui-Gon would complain about that." Depa muttered sarcastically.

"Well if we're gonna do this, we need a game plan. I saw half of us get the necessary groceries and the other half cook." Mace said.

"We get to go grocery shopping?!" Shaak squeaked excitedly.

"Um…yeah?" Mace replied, not understand her enthusiasm.

"The time has come!" Shaak shoved her hand down the collar of her robe.

"NO Shaak! " Depa shrieked, "We don't want a repeat of last year's Christmas party!"

…Shaak tends to lose what little modesty she has whenever coconut rum is involved. After last year's Christmas party the rest of the Council is never sure what to expect when Shaak reaches into her robe.

"…I wouldn't mind a repeat of last year's Christmas party." Pervert Eeth muttered and was promptly thwacked with a Gimmer stick.

"No you idiots!" Shaak scoffed, "That was a once in a lifetime event."

"Good thing most of us had our camera phones out then." Mace mumbled.

"ANYWAY!" Shaak yelled, "As I was trying to say before your minds inevitably leaped into the gutter: I have something here that will make our grocery shopping much easier and more cost effective."

Shaak pulled a gigantic three-ring binder out of her robe. It was so stuffed that it looked as though just one more page would make it explode.

"You just keep that in your robe?" Adi said, "Thing looks like it wears forty pounds!"

That's 18.14 kilograms for you non-American readers. No metric in 'Murica!

"Well I never know when I'm gonna need it, do I?" Shaak defended herself.

"Depends. What's in it?" Plo wanted to know.

"COUPONS!" Shaak exclaimed.

Pretty sure that's 'voucher' for you European readers. How can English be two different languages?

"Er. Okay." Depa said, "I've used a coupon before. I understand the concept. I do not understand why you need forty pounds of them."

"Extreme couponing, you uncultured bantha!" Shaak insulted, "Haven't you ever seen it on TV? People will clip a crap-ton of them then take them all to the store and end up getting $400 worth of merchandise for like $3*. And that's on a bad day! I've seen people on TV actually get paid by the store to take items."

*That's 256.57 pounds worth of merchandise for 1.92 pounds for our British readers. Or 40048 yen worth of merchandise for 300.36 yen for our Japanese readers. Or two cows, a pig, and three goats worth of merchandise for three chickens for our readers in third world countries (if you're one of them, please PM us and let us know how many cows it takes to purchase Internet service in your country. We are curious).

…This is what sleep deprivation does to Puff.

Anyway. Shaak was explaining the concept of extreme couponing to the idiot Council.

"I've seen that show." Mace spoke up, "Them people are crazy! They make shopping a sport. Shopping is a time to acquire more cereal. A peaceful wonderful time. I say we go grocery shopping like normal people, make sure we buy some marshmallows, then we can burn that big ol' binder of yours, and roast marshmallows over it."

"No way, baldy!" Shaak clutched her precioussssss binder to her chest, "I spent almost a year gathering these coupons. No way I'm gonna let you burn them! Trust me, extreme couponing is awesome."

"I'm not convinced." Mace said, not convinced.

"Would you be convinced if I told you I have enough coupons here to get thirty boxes of Cheerios for just 35 cents*?" Shaak offered.

*Let's just say that's less than a dollar. No more math!

Mace squinted his eyes skeptically, "What kind of Cheerios?"

"It says 'any flavor'." Shaak bribed.

"I'm convinced!" Mace said, convinced.

"Okay." Yoda spoke up, "Shaak, Mace, Eeth, Depa, and Shaak's giant binder go shopping. Get everything organized and later cook Oppo, Adi, Yareal, Yaddle, Plo, and I will."

"How about you work on your word ordering a little too?" Eeth suggested, "That kinda sounded like you were gonna cook Oppo, Adi, Yareal, Yaddle, Plo, and yourself."

"What?" Yoda said, "Realize that I did not. Sorry I am. A cannibal I am not."

"Much better word ordering there." Eeth rolled his eyes.

"Come on people!" Shaak cheered, "We must go shopping! Last one to speeder is a cereal-obsessed bald man!"

"You implying I'm gonna be last?" Mace demanded, "I'll show you!"

Mace stood up from his seat and tried to take off running…but fell flat on his face because Shaak had tied his bootlaces to his chair while Qui-Gon had been ranting a few pages ago.

Eeth, Depa, and Shaak all laughed hysterically as they ran past Mace to the speeder. Mace cursed loudly as he struggled to untie his bootlaces. When he was finally free he took off after the other Jedi. Still cursing loudly. Because that's what Samuel L Jac…er…Mace Windu does!

Tune in soon for the next exciting installment of The Jedi Council Part 20: Grocery Shopping 101

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