BAD LUCK: that's a fine 'how do you do'. OPEN

[Percie Hobbes]

Despite the fact that two of the three Hobbes siblings had moved away from Pilot Ridge, Percie’s mother and father continued to live there happily and insisted that other extended family members come to visit. Family reunions weren’t unusual for the them but the amount of children this time was. While the three Hobbes siblings were out doing strange technopathic/fancy MIT stuff, flying planes and solving mysteries, their cousins were getting married and having babies.

This of course made Percie ecstatic and she spent most of her time surrounded by the tiny human beings cooing at and playing with them. Her cousin Greg had seen this as a wonderful opportunity to take his wife somewhere for some well-deserved “couple” time and put Percie in charge of their eighteen-month-old daughter Regina. The private detective had been more than happy to take care of her second cousin for a few hours but still had some errands to run. Being the capable woman that she was she decided that she could certainly multitask.

So now here she was with Regina wrapped up in one of those weird sarong thingies that Percie thought was rather dangerous (but Greg and his wife didn’t have a more traditional baby carrier) as she went shopping for office supplies. She might not have a fridge full of food, but god forbid if she ran out of pens. Regina seemed content enough, babbling, pointing and trying to eat Percie’s hair as they shopped and through it all Percie enjoyed it immensely….

Then Regina’s bladder decided to have a say. At first Percie wasn’t sure WHAT exactly was going on until she looked down to realize that a large wet spot was forming on her shirt. She was dumbfounded for a moment…seriously…what was that? Then Regina began to fret and then wail and Percie came to realize that the scent that was tickling at her nose was, in fact…urine. Regina had peed on her. Percie had dealt with bodily fluids before, way more than she liked to admit…a little baby pee shouldn’t have been a big deal. Except as she rifled through the diaper bag on the way to the bathroom she realized…there wasn’t a change of clothes in there for the baby….

Son of a monkey’s uncle.

[Samantha Emerson]

Samantha mouthed the words to the song playing through the store as she flipped through the clearance rack. She liked seeing the mannequins modeling the latest styles, outfits always perfect. But she loved sifting through clearance sections and second-hand stores. It was like a treasure hunt, and she never had the problem of running into someone in the same clothes as she was. It was also much nicer to her wallet. 

She wasn't looking for anything in particular today, and had so far found only one item of interest. It was, of all things, a piece of pottery. It was a little homely, but Sam planned to give it new life with her paints. As she made her way to the mall exit, she passed by a little kiosk selling peppermint sticks with stripes of various flavors. On a whim, Samantha bought a dozen, each one a different color. But instead of stowing them away in her bag, she continued walking around the mall, distributing them to random strangers. 

She was down to her last three sticks, and scanned the stream of people of someone who might enjoy a sweet surprise. She spotted a woman carrying a baby, and her mind was made up. She made a beeline for the woman and called out with a smile, "Hey! Would either one of you like a peppermint?" Samantha waited for the woman to look up from her bag, and her nose twitched as a sharp smell wafted to her nose. Yes, a peppermint would definitely improve the smell.

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