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Language:
English
Series:
Part 6 of Couple one shots
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Published:
2021-06-06
Words:
1,792
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
6
Kudos:
46
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1,000

Black Friday

Summary:

Amy and Jake get stuck in a long queue at their local grocery store.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

A my and Jake were in their local grocery store, shopping with Mac. It was Black Friday and they wanted to make use of the crazy price drops. They were currently in the queue for the check-out… which they have been in for the past two hours.

Mac was sitting in the trolley looking around while Jake and Amy were on their phones.

“Mom?” Mac asked as he looked up at her.

“Yes sweetie?” Amy said as she put her phone in her pocket.

“How much longer do we have to wait? I'm boreddd!”

Amy sighed. “Only a few minutes, we’ll be out soon!”

“But you said that ages ago.”

“Oh, did I?”

Jake chimed in, “Mhmmm. Exactly 42 minutes ago.”

“Thanks for the clarity, babe,” she said sarcastically. She turned back to Mac. “I’m sure we’ll be out soon. We’re only eleven shopping carts away from the register.”

“Can I play on your phone again?” he asked politely.

“Ok, but only the games.” Amy gave her son the phone and watched as he went on a colouring game she had installed for him.

Knowing that he was occupied, he turned to Jake, who was making a drum beat by tapping his hands on the handle of the cart. She sighed and lightly tapped him on the shoulder.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Amy whispered.

“I didn’t know that lines were going to be this long.”

“It’s Black Friday! What did you expect?”

“I haven’t been shopping on Black Friday in forever. It’s not my fault that I forgot that it’s complete chaos.”

“It is really chaotic. You know, I saw two men fighting over a toaster which was 50% off.”  

Jake rubbed the side of his nose. “Wow. If a fight does break out, you better shield Mac from it so I can get a video of it.”

“Jake no.”

“Jake, yes,” he said with a cheeky smile. “Videos of people fighting over stuff on Black Friday go viral online!”

Amy sighed and checked back on Mac. He was swiping his finger across the screen and tapping the screen vigorously. At one point, he dropped the phone, but luckily Amy managed to grab it before it shattered on the ground. As she gave it back, she noticed the line was moving.

“Jake, look. The line is moving.”

Jake got off his phone and pushed the cart forward one space. He leaned to the side to see how much stuff the people in front of him had. He saw mountains of different products such as TV’s and pans stacked in overfilled carts. It was like a game to see who could grab the most first.

“Dad?” Mac asked.

“Yesss?”

“Can we play that hand game?”

Jake shot him a confused look. “What ‘hand game?’”

“The one you taught me a few days ago. The one with the rock, paper and scissors.”

“Oh! Rock-paper-scissors. Sure, let’s play.” He quickly fixed the packs of strawberry chocolate yoghurt that was leaning to the side. “You remember how to play, right?”

Mac nodded and gave his mother’s phone back to her. “You say it.”

“Ok.” He got ready. “Rock-paper-scissors!”

Jake held out scissors and Mac held out rock.

“Hey, you win!” Jake exclaimed.

“Again!”

They played again. Jake chose rock and Mac chose paper.

“You win again!”

Amy nudged Jake. “I’m surprised you’re not doing your ‘reverse psychology’ thing.”

“I would, but he’s only a kid. I need to go easy on him. That’s why I’m losing on purpose.”

“Oh? So, you’re a psychic?”

Jake looked confused. “What?”

“Somehow, you’re predicting the Mac’s future actions. Very believable.”

“We don’t need to get into detail about how I’m letting him win,” Jake said. He turned back to Mac. “Anyways, rock-paper-scissors!”

Amy watched as the two played more rounds. Not surprisingly, Jake lost the majority of games as halfway through he pulled out his ‘reverse psychology’ card. Then, she realised was doing it on purpose due to his overreactions whenever Mac beat him. She thought it was sweet that he would do that, especially knowing how competitive he was.

It was a good time killer as by the time they had gotten bored, five carts had finished checking out. Now five to go!

By this point, they were all getting hungry. They had dinner two hours ago and they needed some snacks to fill them up.

“I’m hungry,” Mac said as he adjusted himself in his seat.

Jake pulled something out of his pocket. “I have some of your favourite fruit snacks!” He handed them to him.

He struggled to open the packet. After about two or three attempts, his parents were ready to step in. In the end, he got it open. He munched down on the colourful fruit-flavoured snacks.

“God, I’m hungry too,” Amy mentioned. “Do you happen to have any other food in there?”

“Let me check.” He dug into his pocket to find anything. As he did, he pulled out: his keys, wallet, a guitar keychain, and a bunch of random coins. It was like one of those magic acts where the magician kept pulling out objects from his bag.

“How much stuff do you have in there?”

“Just the essentials.” Jake then checked his other pocket. He took out: receipts, a random business card, and a rubber band. Then, he came across something edible. “Ah-ha! A chocolate bar.” The bar was small in size, and its blue packaging was all crumpled up.

Amy sighed. “I guess it would do. Let’s split it.”

Jake was about to break it in half, but then thought of something. “We could just eat some of the food we have,” he said as he pointed to the cart.

“Umm, babe. Isn’t that technically shoplifting? We haven’t paid for it yet.”

“Yeah, but we’re going to pay for it anyways, so I don’t really see a problem with it.”

“We’re still in the store though. And what if we don’t have the money?”

“But we do have money… are you saying we’re broke!?” Jake questioned.

“No, no! We have money. I’m just saying theoretically if we didn’t have money.”

“I mean yeah, if we were broke. However, we know we’re not broke.”

Amy fixed her hair. “Our cards could decline.”

“What, both our cards? There’s a low chance that will happen, don’t you think?”

Amy sighed. This argument could go on forever. It would be a good way to pass time, but she was honestly too exhausted. Normally she would love a little playful argument like this with her husband, but not today.

Jake knew what that sigh meant. She had many different sighs. Happy sighs, angry sighs, sad sighs, all of them. He knew this was her exhausted sigh. They were out for the whole day after all. Mac hadn’t been out in a long time since they were both busy with work. As a treat, they went around the city. Walking around parks and eating sweet treats included some of the activities they did. At one point, Amy almost fell into the duck pond!

“You know what, let’s just split the bar,” Jake said.

“Oh, thank God!” Amy exclaimed as she took her half of the bar. She tossed it into her mouth and munched it down.

Jake ate his half. It was small, but still tasty. He quickly put all his ‘essential’ items back into his large pockets and fixed his hoodie.

For the rest of the queueing, they mostly stood in silence. There was the occasional comment from Mac, but he was occupied with his mother’s phone half the time. Jake wanted to talk to her, but he could tell he wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat. It was obvious she wanted to get home and sleep. The chaos around her was not helping. The wails of young children were giving her a headache.

Finally, after 15 more minutes they were only one cart away from leaving! Trouble was the family in front of them had a lot of stuff and it could take a while to unload.

As Amy tapped her fingers on the handle, she realised that there was something they forgot to get.

“Oh shoot, I forgot toilet roll.” She walked away and turned to Jake. “I’ll be back!” she yelled.

Jake gave her a thumbs up and leaned on the handle. He looked around the store. Queues and queues of people were waiting to get their things checked out. All the registers were filled to the brim with people and products.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two women arguing. They both stood in front of a large flat screen TV. Their yells seemed to get louder and louder which got everyone’s attention. A worker then came over which was the moment it got physical. Punches were thrown and hair was grabbed. The worker had called over others to handle the situation.

It was at this point when people started filming it. Jake was about to get out his phone, but then he remembered Mac. Currently, he was staring at the ground. At any moment, he could look up and see his dad recording two people having a brawl. What kind of example would that set? Being the responsible dad he was, he decided not to record it and look away.

Mac then glanced up. He looked up at his dad and then to the direction of the fight. This alerted Jake.

“Hey Mac, look at this,” Jake said quickly.

Mac turned his head to his father. At that moment, he started making funny faces to distract him. He laughed as Jake made the silliest faces.

Amy returned with her nine-pack of toilet rolls. She realised what was going on and turned her head away. As she looked around, she saw that most were either recording or seeing what was happening. She then turned her attention to Jake who was surprisingly not. A proud smile appeared on her face as she speedily walked back to them.

“I’m back,” she announced as she plopped the rolls down.

“Hey,” Jake said with a quick smile, still distracting Mac.

After a few minutes, the women were escorted out of the grocery store, and everything went back to normal, like nothing ever happened.

Amy started whispering, “Thanks for not letting him see that.”

“No problem, I’ll get that viral video next time,” he joked.

Amy chuckled. She saw that the people in front were gone and the man at the counter was making gestures towards them to come forward.

“Our turn, finally.” Amy said.

Jake laughed. “Ugh, finally!” He pushed the cart forwards and with the help of Amy (and a little from Mac) they started to unload the groceries.

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed (:

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