Helter-Skelter Play

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

Nodding, Rome let Kiko lead the way. Thankfully, she was right, and he snatched up one, as well as some extra bottles of the smoke stuff. "This is going to be the best haunted house ever."

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Kiko stood on tiptoes and peered down into the contents of their cart. "Are we missing anything? Oh, oh, we need to play spoooooky music and laughter. Do you think we can find something on soundcloud and just play the laptop, or should we get a CD?"

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

Roman was practically bouncing with excitement, and it was only September. October needed to hurry it up and get here right now. He had neighbours to make jealous and kids to scare!

"Ehh..." Decisions decisions... "We could look on soundcloud and if it's all crap we can always do something like look on Amazon for a good CD. ... Or six." That boyish grin wasn't going anywhere fast. "What did we come for again? Did we get everything?" His mind had been full tilt on Halloween, so he honestly couldn't recall why they'd even gone out in the first place.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"That's actually a very good plan," Kiko approved, raising both eyebrows in an impressed expression. Although Rome was, in fact, very smart, he didn't always behave as if he was.

At his question she sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "I know that you're embarrassed to go into the women's clothing section, but you don't need to be rude about it. You go...go...go find some more candy or something while I look for bras."

The underwire on a couple of her current ones had broken, much to her dismay; nobody wanted to walk around with their underwire poking them in the boobs.

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

If any of his friends (especially James) had made that comment, Rome might have pretended to by a little hurt by it. But Kiko was different, and any praise from her thrilled him, much like it might a dog. He beamed at her, clearly proud of himself.

His expression changed, however, when Kiko planted her hands on her hips. He knew that look, he just couldn't fathom why he was being given it. At least, not until she spoke. Oh.... riiiiiight. At least he managed to look ever so slightly guilty about it. "I wasn't trying to be rude! I just... uh... forgot?" Still, the dismissal was all he needed, as was the instruction to get more candy. "I'll... um... meet you over there?" His sisters would have a field day if they saw him in action like this, especially Cassie.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Eventually bras were found (several in white and nude, but one light blue with lace because she simply couldn't resist) and she set out to find her husband. She crept through the aisles, scanning for his head.

He was inspecting a bag of candy.

Good.

Maybe he wouldn't look up.

She hung the bras over her arm and picked up a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket (admittedly not as frightening as the mask had been) and snuck up to him.

"Boo!"

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

While Kiko looked at bras, Rome was happy to take the cart and return to browsing the Halloween aisles. Every time he passed a selection, he saw something new and fun, so it didn't take long for the cart to be near exploding territory. His credit card might feel a bit of a burn, but that was okay. They could afford it, and it was the holidays!

After mentally cutting himself off, he went back to the candy as instructed. One or two... or eight more bags couldn't hurt, right? He was just trying to decide which bag of assorted bars had the most mini Mars bars when he heard the sudden shout.

It worked. He jumped, dropping the bag of candy. "Jesus!" Looking over at the culprit, he huffed and tried to rein back some of his lost dignity. "You're so not scary, Kik."

[Tsukiko Aoki]

Tsukiko pressed her face against the back of the plastic jack-o-lantern, giggling in what was surely an unseemly manner for someone who was thirty-seven before slinging the bucket into the cart on top of the candy and other assorted Halloween goodies.

"That's not what your expression said a second ago," She replied tartly, standing on tiptoes to give her husband a kiss on the cheek. She may not have been especially short, but Roman was tall.

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

Rome might have been pretending to be not-scared and a tiny bit miffed, but the giggling, as it so often did, stopped that right in its' tracks. Kiko giggling was like kryptonite.

As were her kisses. Smirking, he glanced down at her. "Well. Maybe a little scary." Hopefully she wouldn't comment on the near-exploding cart. "Did you find everything you needed?"

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"I did. Now get out your card before we get into line so you don't have to stumble around for it when the cashier rings us up," Kiko pointed in the direction of the check out lanes; there were numerous lanes, but only two cashiers could be seen, and both lines were full.

Better to be prepared and save the cashiers some small amount of grief.

[Dr. Roman Tilford]

"Okay, okay, I'm going." Roman guided their overloaded and near-exploding card to the ever so slightly shorter of the two long lines. Leaning on the handbar, he dug in his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out his credit card. Yes, it would feel a bit of a sting, but it was so very, very worth it. "Where to after this? Anywhere special? ... Do you still want to look at sheds for the yard so we have somewhere to store the garage stuff?" No, he hadn't forgotten. He was just eager to go home and start looking at what they had to work with. By the time mid-October hit, he wanted to be ready.

[Tsukiko Aoki]

"A shed is a great idea, we should do that." Kiko agreed. She reached up to pat her husband on the shoulder.

They were going to have a fantastic Halloween this year.