Christmas advent calendar || Alan Becker

Dec. 2 - Shopping

"Oooh, can we get this?"

"Red, you know we can't get everything in the mall!"

"Okay. . . then what about this?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"It's $1,000! We're not getting it."

"You're such a bummer, Yellow,"
Red huffed, picking up the $1,000 pre-made gingerbread house on display. "Look at how cool it is, too! It even lights up!"

Yellow sighed. "We would buy it, but it's still $1,000, not including tax," he said, glancing at Mango whom was in the candle aisle, shoving his face in every candle. "Plus, Mango said that we're not spending more than $200 on a single item. That's going way over budget."

"Fine! I'll just go ask TSC and Green if we can get it." Red declared, going over to TSC and Green, both of whom were sitting on a couch.

It almost looked like TSC was about to fall asleep.

As Red tried to convince both of them that it was a good idea to buy the gingerbread house, Yellow and Blue went over to the lights section.

There were lightbulbs, and LED strips found in this aisle, but luckily, Yellow found some golden colored string lights, too.

This is perfect for decorating the house! Yellow thought, smiling to himself with satisfaction. He grabbed two packs off the shelf, looking at the white packaging. He turned around, looking up.

What he was expecting was Blue to be standing right next to him.

What he was expecting was an empty shopping cart where he could drop the lights into.

Yellow burst into laughter, seeing Blue sitting squat in the middle of the cart with a smirk on his face.

"What are you doing in there? The lights are supposed to go in there, not you!" Yellow snickered, setting the lights at the front of the cart.
"What? I couldn't help it," Blue replied, looking over his shoulder at Yellow, a sly look playing on his face."But y'know, you could just, push me around for a little bit... nobody would notice a thing!"

"This is really out of character for you," Yellow said seriously, which was broken by a hint of a smile creeping in.

"Yeah, I know," Blue replied, shrugging.

"Just be careful not to slam your head into anything, alright? I don't want you to get a concussion on the second day we're in Stick City." Yellow joked.

"Don't worry about it," Blue responded.

Yellow started pushing the cart around, walking to make it seem as though it were normal. Ignoring the weird looks they were getting from other stick figures, they traveled to the back of the store, while Yellow slowly started to walk faster and faster.

Soon, Yellow and Blue were speeding around the store, as more and more people cast them concerned and weirded-out looks.

"WHOOOO!!!!" Blue clutched the front of the shopping cart, trying not to flip over. "Yellow, this is so awesome!!"

Yellow ran between each of the shelves, dodging all of the other customers. "I know!!" Yellow shouted over the sound of the screeching wheels. "This is epic!"

Blue flung his arms into the air like he was in a roller coaster, laughing as Yellow dove between different lanes.

A moss colored stick figure tugged her son closer to herself as Yellow and Blue sprinted past them. "You see those sticks over there, Olive? Those are the type sticks you don't want to be when you grow up," she said disapprovingly, shaking her head.

Yellow and Blue neared the end of the aisle, but Yellow just kept getting faster and faster. Soon, they were at a wall so Yellow decided to make a sharp turn left to avoid a collision–

He didn't see his friends lounging around in the furniture section of the store, and found himself going as fast as he could towards the couches and sofas.

"Hi Blue!!" Red waved both his arms back in forth as Blue got closer and closer to them.

"Hey Red!" Blue waved back, then turned his head toward Yellow, "Umm, Yellow, could you. . . slow down a bit? I think we're getting a little too close to them."

Yellow's arms became spaghetti as he tried swerving the cart out of the way of his friends. He succeeded, but only to find the world flipping over as he and Blue crashed into a Christmas tree display.

"...oww, that hurt," Blue said a moment a later, rubbing his head. Red and TSC came over, followed by Green and Purple.

"Are you guys okay?!" Red asked, pulling Blue up.

"Yeah, I'm fine! I don't think I can say the same for the Christmas tree though..." Blue replied, looking at the damage. Yellow got up, brushing away the clumps of fake green needles off himself. "Hmm, yeah. That actually wasn't apart of the plan, believe it or not." Yellow looked at Mango's face, which clearly said this day can't get any worse.

Purple came over, trying to reassure Mango. "It's fine, we'll get it fixed up soon." Purple glanced over at the toppled Evergreen tree and the string of lights that were tangled on the ground. "I hope we'll get it fixed up soon."

A crowd started to form, and a staff member came over to Mango.

"Sir, are these your children?" she asked, glaring at Red, TSC, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.

"This one is mine (my adopted son)," Mango said, patting Purple on the shoulder. "However, I'm taking care of this whole group."

"Sir, since your children damaged this-"

"Yes, I know," Mango sighed, glowering at the group before handing over his credit card.

She took the credit card and called the manager over. 

They talked in hushed conversation and glanced at the display a few more times. They inspected it a little more until the manager cleared her throat and looked over at Mango's disgruntled face.

"We've come to determine that you only ended up breaking the lights of the display, not the actual tree," The manager said, glancing at the staff member, "Although, our property insurance will cover the cost of the broken lights, so you don't have to worry about paying for it."

"Okay, thank you for letting me know." Mango sighed of relief as two more workers came over to clean up the mess. He gave Yellow and Blue a stern look before going over to both shopping carts.

"We can stay here for a little bit longer, but no more riding around in shopping carts. Understand?" Mango lectured them. Yellow and Blue nodded, before hurrying off to the inflatables aisle (I know this doesn't actually exist but just pretend it does, okay?)

TSC went to the furniture section again while Green and Red decided to go in search of a "free food samples" stand. The only thing they managed to find were patterned mugs, marshmallows, and chocolate. So what did they do? Get it of course! :D

Purple realized that there were exactly three gingerbread houses, perfect if the CG were to pair up into teams and make one gingerbread house each! (foreshadowing?) He went up to Mango, who was looking at candles once again.

"Dad, could we get this?"

    ° ° °

1145 words <33

Honestly, I wished this chapter was as funny as the last one, but I today was a Monday and we all know how Mondays can feel .-.

hope you got little entertained by this chapter!! :D

(started + finished on Monday nov. 28)