to find what none could sell you.

v. (stitches + nervous energy)

"Miss! Miss. Uh, can you help me? It's pretty important."

Grace nearly tumbles from the stepladder she struggles to reach the top shelves with, as a kid who doesn't look much older than her comes skidding around the corner and nearly collides with it, begging of her attention with palpable urgency. She plasters on her customer service smile, steadying herself on the shelving. "Of course. What do you need?"

"I need like.... a lot of medical stuff. I don't really... know what exactly. But I'm supposed to get one of everything, I guess." He runs a nervous hand through almost black hair, switching between legs like a grasshopper.

Grace nods, trying to exude some sense of calm that will prevent him from giving her a nervous breakdown by osmosis. "Oh. I see." How is she supposed to respond to that? What does that even mean? Who told him what he was supposed to get? Is he covering for a serial killer? Did he accidentally almost murder someone? How can you run into a drug store and demand to purchase one of everything and imagine that someone won't contact the emergency services?

She steps down off the ladder, motioning him to follow her. They enter their first aid section, and she makes a sweeping gesture with both hands. "This is where all those kinds of products are. We're not qualified to give any medical advice, and we recommenced that you consult with the pharmacist if you have any serious questions, but, uh..... what are you trying to do?"

"I can't really explain it," the young man hedges. "Basically my friends and I were hanging out? And somebody thought it would be funny to-" he pauses for a long moment, and then winds up just shaking his head. "No, I really can't explain it. Just... What do you have for emergency stitches?"

Grace feels her eyes widen. "You know how to do stitches?"

"No... but my friend does."

After a small hesitation, Grace decides that speculating on the whole mess isn't worth it, and she dutifully shows the young man a large boxed first aid kit that includes an emergency suture, along many other products, and then she follows him to the front to pay. She almost can't walk as fast as he's walking, which, considering the speed required of her typical job, is really saying something about his own sense of urgency.

As she's ringing up the order and popping the box into a large bag, even though he didn't ask for one, he nervously adjusts the collar on the shirt he's wearing, offering her a somewhat sheepish laugh. "Look, I'm sorry if I freaked you out or whatever. I'm just kind of on edge." There's no one in the store aside from them this dry, empty Sunday morning, and the radio has been out of commission for a day or two now, so to add to this atmosphere it's dead silent aside from the hum of the air handling system.

"Oh, you're fine," Grace says easily.

"No, I mean- I'm just saying. I guess I'm just kind of worried because- I mean, I'm not the one who needs stitches. It's my friend who needs stitches. But what we were doing was my idea, you know?" He hesitates, thinking about something, and then shakes his head like an etch-a-sketch to clear it, looking back at her. "I don't know, I just-" He's cut off mid-ramble by the sudden blast of Never Gonna Give You Up that it takes Grace a solid twenty-five seconds to realize is his ringtone. He jumps at the sound in the disconcertingly silent store, and frantically removes the shrill device from his pocket.

"Hello? Chris!"

Grace feels her eyebrows ascend towards her hairline. Her Chris? It has to be. Nothing else would make sense in the bizarre world where she lives.

"Uh, yeah- yeah, I got it. No, it's fine. Tell him to shut up then! I'm not gonna let him do that- it was my fault. Besides, I'm already paying, anyway." He's slowly navigating the card reader prompts as he speaks into the receiver. "Say, do you have a store card here?" His eyes widen at the response he gets, looking at Grace as if he expects her to fully understand his incredulity at this news- which would be fully absurd if she wasn't such a little snoop, she thinks wryly. "I mean- you're in here all the time." It seems as if he keeps on talking faster and faster, and though Grace has only had the pleasure of knowing him for five minutes, she's beginning to realize that the speed of his words is directly related to the spinning of his brain.

"You could be saving so much money! I bet I could figure it out for you so you'd wanna get one. And- what? Yeah, I know. It's not that serious." He hesitates to listen for a moment. "Yeah, I know- breathe." As if to prove his point he sucks in a huge breath like a vacuum cleaner and lets it all out at once, in what has to be the least effective demonstration of a calming breath that Grace has ever seen. "Got it. Yeah, well, he can whine all he wants but I won't get any faster- of course I'm on my way! Why don't you just put him on?"

He finally looks up at Grace as he moves away, holding the phone down a bit to address her instead, offering her a sheepish smile and a quick nod. "I'm sorry, miss- I gotta get going. Thanks for the help! Bye!" And he's backing away, bouncing out the door with energy only he knows the source of. Grace looks after him in mild confusion, but it's not the strangest thing that's ever happened in her store- certainly not the strangest thing connected to her rag-tag gang of Chris supporters.