Lactose Intolerant Part 2
It
afforded Devlin the opportunity to people watch, starting with a leggy brunette
in the football jersey who was rummaging around in her bag, muttering to
herself about never having a stupid pen.
"I
can relate," he chuckled as they went by; pausing only so he could pass
her the only pen they had on them.
Not
like they had a list anyway. She smiled and thanked him while Naill grumbled
about Devlin never being prepared for anything. That wasn't true and his
brother knew it, he kept a condom in his wallet, right next to a little packet
of lube. Equal opportunity and all that jazz, if there was one thing their unique
existence had taught him was to never limit themselves in anything.
“Which
is why we are one honey bun away from actually needing to do exercise,” Nail
muttered furiously as they headed for the aisle marked canned fruits and vegetables.
Devlin simply whistled a happy tune and pushed the cart, breathing in the scent
of chicken frying over in the deli. A pyramid of mushrooms stood beside the
endcap, picture perfect with all of the labels facing in the same direction.
"They'd
be pretty good on pizza," Devlin remarked, eyeing up the cans.
"Fresh
ones are better and we're not making pizza, we're not making anything that
comes from a drive through or can be delivered to our door."
"You
do know that we get cranky when we're hungry."
"Thought
you agreed to shut up and let me handle this?"
Devlin
grumbled and narrowed his eye. "Fine," he snapped, but that didn't
stop him from reaching out and snagging a can as they went past. Unfortunately,
the rapid, jerky movement sparked an avalanche of cans and a gasp from Naill.
In a flurry of motion, they grabbed at the cans, gathering them all back up
before they could hit the ground in a cacophony of noise. Unfortunately,
putting them back so fast meant that they ended up in a precariously balanced
pile, nothing like the precise placement they'd been in before Devlin happened
past.
"You
just couldn't resist, could you? Naill grumbled.
"One
can isn't going to hurt us, besides, we can throw it into a pot of spaghetti or
something," Devlin pointed out, the offending can still clutched in his
grasp.
Naill
let out a long suffering sigh and rolled his eye. "Fine, but from here on
out, you keep your hand to yourself."
Smirking,
Devlin placed the can in the cart and made an x with his fingers across his
chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die"
"So I'd wish, but that would be
suicide," Naill complained as he took charge of their direction, wandering
down the aisle and adding cans of pineapples and apricots. They'd hardly gone a
few steps when a woman fussing at her child to slow down and stay beside her
took the turn, and distracted, bumped into the stand, sending mushroom cans
everywhere. The crash was spectacular, cans rolling down the aisle and bouncing
with loud clangs off metal shelves. Naill cringed, pushing the cart a little
faster.
"Shit,
cleanup on aisle three," Devlin muttered, hiding a snicker behind his
hand.
"It
ain't funny."
"Yeah,
it kinda is," Devlin remarked as the woman tried to corral the out of
control kid, dodging cans and nearly tripping on them while she made a grab for
him. "Maybe she'll put the kid in a cart from now on."
"Wish
I could shove you in a cart, you're old enough to know better."
"So's
the kid, or he would be, if she'd teach him some manners."
"Yeah,
'cause you know all about raising kids, right?"
"I'm
just saying, maybe if some folks taught these brats young, they wouldn't grow
up to be little assholes who run around robbing corner stores, spray painting
other people's property and beating up folks for their money."
"Maybe..."
Naill
grabbed a couple bags of dried beans, studying them awhile as he debated which
would be best in a pot of chili, before finally deciding on the canned beans,
uncertain if it would be worth the effort of having to soak them overnight,
then boil them before they'd be of any use.
"Chili
does sound good; think we can figure out cornbread?"
"It
shouldn't be too hard," Naill replied, grateful that Devlin was finally
getting with the program; they headed into the aisle with the baking products
only to discover that there were way more kinds of flour than they'd ever
imagined.
"Ummm,"
Devlin stammered as they walked slowly past bags of rye and wheat, bleached, gluten
free, rice flour, oat flour, all-purpose, self-rising, and finally, corn meal.
"Pretty
sure we need this," Naill stated as he picked up the corn meal. Turning
the package over revealed a recipe for corn bread, so he made short work of
grabbing the all-purpose flour, honey, and sugar they also needed from the
aisle.
"Hey,
if we grab some vanilla extract maybe we can figure out how to bake a cake,
don't all those cooking shows talk about vanilla extract?" Devlin
supplied.
"No
cake, even homemade counts as junk food," Naill pointed out. He grabbed a
small bottle of cooking oil, then paused at the spice rack, selecting several
items and adding them to the cart.
"Do
you even know what those are used for? Devlin asked, as Naill added jars of
sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, and oregano.
"Nope,
but we're going to figure it out."
"Joy."
Devlin's
eyes lit up when they reached the cereal aisle. Reaching for a box of sugary
goodness, he was stopped by Naill's admonishment.
"Don't
even think about it."
"But..."
Groaning,
he dropped his hand, pouting as Naill selected several varieties of shredded wheat
and flakes with nuts and dried fruit bits in them.
"What's
the point of having a super metabolism if you won't even let us enjoy it a
little," Devlin moaned as they passed his favorite cereal, the colorful
box depicting several varieties of oddly shaped grain bits and marshmallows.
"It
won't kill you to eat this for one week."
"You
don't know that. It just might."
Lite
syrup and whole wheat pancake mix soon joined the cereal in the cart. Naill
stared at the oatmeal selections, trying to decide between the organics, gluten
frees, lites, instant, steal cut, old fashioned and sugar-free. Devlin would
have selected the flavored packages of fruits and cream or maple and brown
sugar, Naill of course, grabbed the gluten free, likely because it looked the
least appealing of all of them.
As
he was tossing it in the cart, they both happened to notice an older gentleman
trying to get the last box of cereal down off the top shelf with his cane.
Hurrying over, they leapt, propelling themselves off one of the bottom shelves
to get greater height, easily snagging the box and landing back beside the old
man with a grin. It was quickly wiped away when he rapped Naill on the wrist
with his cane hard enough to make him drop the box, right into the cart the
crafty old codger had deftly maneuvered into place. Naill grabbed his wrist,
shaking it out while the old man waved his cane at them.
"Think
you was being smart, didn't ja, you young whipper snapper. Well let me tell you
something, no little punk is going to steal my cereal and get away with it. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself; didn't your folks ever teach you to respect
your elders? You just wait, one day you'll be old and bent and let’s see how
you like it when folks just push you aside like you ain't even there anymore. I
know you saw me grabbing that box. What right do you think you've got to try
and take it away? You want a box; you go ask them if they got some more in the
back, this one is mine. Have some damned respect for descent folks who just
wanna get on back home without any trouble."
Naill
opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't manage to find the words before the old
man hobbled away pushing his cart, muttering under his breath about kids these
days.
“Unbelievable."
Naill muttered.
"Why?
Look at what happened with the purse snatching we stopped last week. We step in
and keep those two girls from mugging the lady, leave them tied up in the alley
and even offer to escort the woman home so she made it there safely, and she turns
around and beats on us with that damned heavy assed handbag, yelling at us
about putting our hands on those girls. Like they weren't about to beat the
hell outta her if she didn't given them everything she had."
"True.”
Naill conceded. “He didn't even give us a chance to explain."
"Why,
when he'd already made up his mind about our intentions the moment we stepped
in. Let's face it, people are jaded. It’s easier for them to see the bad in
everyone than to expect something good."
"Tell
me again why we bother?"
"I
guess so we don't become as disillusioned as the rest of them. Besides, what's
the point of having lightning reflexes if we can't do anything with them? It’s
not like we can take all of our martial arts training and complete in
tournaments or even fight pro, it wouldn’t be fair, we'd always be able to anticipate
where the strikes would land, so we'd always counter them, where's the
challenge in that?"
"Where's
the challenge now?"
"True,
but at least we're doing something good, even if most people don't appreciate
it."
No comments:
Post a Comment