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What used to be a branch of A&P was taken over by Stop&Shop. The Locals thought that they were very witty when they came up with the store's nickname. Unfortunatally for Stop&Shop, the name stuck. Most of the people of Delmor don't even know where the Stop&Shop is if you ask them. Unlike most other Stop&Shops, this one is very small. It lacks most of the departments that the others have like a bank, dunkin donuts, post office and kitchen sink instalation booth. Here they just have food... and all the cigarettes you can buy (even if you're under-age).

The giant Mongol with the wispy beard stepped into the store the locals called, "Stop&P" with some relish. Ghengis Tron, the great Mongol Warlord so recently revived, cared not for the local toilet humor. What was important was that he needed some milk.

He hitched his horse in the lot, saying to it, "Sit now, Mongolka. I will be back with some provisions for tonight."

He then turned to the Stop&P, and said, "Now, to see what the local merchants have to offer."

He sauntered close to the market, but was dismayed to find the entrance blocked by a boy and a girl. He coughed, and said, "Excuse me, I need to enter this market. Please move to one side."

Tron picked up a gallon jug of whole milk, and then walked up to the counter to the sole self-serve checkout machine. He tried to scan the milk into the machine, and pay. But it kept refusing his milk.

So, he sighed, and said, "You will pay for messing with the Great Tron." Holding his hand up to the machine, he said a few words in Mongolian, and the machine began flickering, beeping, and buzzing, with binary text scrolling across the screen. Electricity seemed to spark from Tron's fingers, guiding themselves into the scanner.

Then, he stopped, and scanned the milk again. It accepted the milk. He then put in a few dollars, and picked up his change before bagging the milk and preparing himself to leave.

<<


Despite the fact that Louis knew how to get to the store, he found that he didn't have the slightest idea where anything actually was within the store. Shopping had always taken him longer than he expected, but what made it even worse was the fact that under the circumstances (being in a new town and knowing nothing or nobody), the shopping took MUCH longer than expected.

At least he had landed himself assistance from a hot blonde customer service worker that was only a few years older than him. It was quite clear though, that she only helped him because it was her job. The only conversation she had made was, “Napkins are down this aisle,” or something similar. She also said it with an obvious dislike of Louis, whom wasn’t exactly the greatest people person there was.


“Where’s the low fat yogurt?” Louis demanded, realizing that no matter how hard his mother tried to lose weight, it wouldn’t work.

“It’s right next to you, dipstick,” the worker replied, her ponytail facing him. “I just showed you where to get milk. We’re in dairy,” she reminded him, emphasizing dairy and rolling her eyes. Louis wanted to smack himself on the head for his stupidity, but he wouldn’t want the worker to feel like the costumer wasn’t always right after all, so he just nodded and reached down to retrieve some of the yogurt.

“You know, I could get you into trouble for referring to me like that,” Louis told her, simply to piss her off even more. She turned angrily to him.

“One of my three other jobs will make up for it,” she sneered. “Anything else? I was reading a great article saying that Brittney Spears went bald and I really want to get back to it.”

“They don’t pay you to read magazines,” Louis replied, and read off the next item on his list.

He shopped, angering the young woman more and more until they were on a first name basis. Ellen was her name, not that Louis particularly cared, being that they hadn’t introduced themselves, and he only knew her name because of a name tag. She only knew his because his mother had called, screaming at him to hurry through one of the most low-tech cell phones there was. Ellen had heard everything that was said, even though the phone was on low volume.

“Cute girlfriend,” Ellen declared, knowing very well who it actually was on the other line. Louis had no reply. He had been next to this girl for about forty-five minutes now, and they were only half way through the list. Louis really needed to be home…not that home would be any better than his aide.
after>>>

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Maria joyously left school and went to the Stop&P. She needed to go and get some REAL food, that cardboard pizza wasn't even close to food. She walked in, and even though the place was vaguely familiar to her, she didn't frequent it. She and Ellen, the snarky customer service girl, almost always got into a minor catfight when they moved the layout around in the Stop&P, which was almost every week.

Maria roamed over to the refrigerated section, grabbed a premade sandwich, looked over in dairy, then just decided to walk on and not get into a catfight again. She paid her 2.50 and ate the sandwich. For a cheesy wannabe department store, they made a good ham&cheese sandwich in the deli. She left, munching the sandwich. Well, I'd better go home before someone... (By someone, of course she meant Gatta) ...tries to bug me for getting home late. Man, sisters can be so a**l, especially psychic geniuses!

<<

Maria walked back into the store. "What? Oh, the layout. Better than the last one! Who puts the refrigerated section next to the CIGARETTES?" she snarled back.

"Oh, and hi. I haven't seen you around here, I think," she added, directing that at Louis.

<<

"Geez, calm down. I'm not going to bug your boss, he's just gonna piss me off. And you know, Louis has a voice. So he can answer for himself! Oh, and I'm Maria Costa. And sorry you had to watch us get a bit catty, I didn't expect her to call me out like that."

I just have to start trying to yank the conversation out of this vein. If I get even a bit angrier, some chip bag's gonna fall without me wanting it to. Stupid telekinesis, why does it have to flare up when I'm mad? This guy looks like he'd get suspicious, even if Ellen didn't. Dammit...