WWW: Searching for Provisions

[Event !]

Due to the massive snow fall and certain power problems that are affecting only part of the town and surrounding area, provisions for some people are scarce. Fortunately, the SuperKiwk Food & Fuel Mart is much like the US Postal Service, and is open throughout all weather. Additional workers are in today to try to cope with demand.

Confidential to Julia: they do sell diapers.

[Celia Gaines]

Damn it was cold. Celia was not used to this kind of weather at all, not even with her oversized coat on was it enough to keep the cold out. Her biggest fear at that point was not being cold, or her hands freezing or anything; it was her voice suffering from the cold. Her voice was the thing keeping her in the rotation of things, her voice paid the bills and cold in whatever form would be fatal if it even so much as touched her throat. So you could imagine the layers of scarfs she wore.

Still, she needed to suck it up and face the weather like a good girl because fate had it that she needed stuff. Stuff was needed to do other stuff. And finding a store that was open during any weather would ensure her of said stuff, if only other people hadn't bought stuff before she could. She'd gladly share her stuff but she would also like it if she actually had stuff to begin with.

Sadly the storm had cut the power at her house and made for a house without stuff, stuff she was kind of raring to use, important stuff like nailpolish, hair dye and.. something personal.

When she entered the only store she knew of that was open even during the snow she took a moment to rid her boots of the snow, luckily she was in the habit of wearing heavy boots that were easy to rid of filth. Like men.

With a sigh and her shoes rid of dirt she turned around to what she saw as her only hope.

[Julia Taylor]

Stuff was good. Stuff was important. Julia also needed stuff - stuff like groceries and batteries for flashlights and candles and baby diapers. There was all kinds of stuff that you didn't realize how badly you needed until you were in an emergency. And now here was Julia in an emergency, driving out into the cold to leave her husband and baby in a dark, cold home while she searched for provisions.

Johnathon had, admittedly, been more prepared than she was. He always was the heartier, more adaptable of the two; he'd found some old flashlights with half-dead batteries down in the basement when the power had gone out the night before, had gone up to the attic to bring down all the old blankets so they wouldn't be cold. Their most urgent of needs were taken care of, but without an exact estimate from the electric company on when their power would come back on, the Taylors had to start thinking in the long-term. So equipped with her purse, a shopping list, and a wool overcoat, Julia had ventured out into snowy Vermont.

Naturally, she had gone to her usual grocery store first, unaware of the fact that the entire shopping center had also lost its power and was thus closed for the time being. With a sigh, she decided instead to go downtown, figuring perhaps one of the smaller shops there would be open. And indeed it was, though apparently word had spread quickly that SuperKwik was open for business: by the time Julia parked and headed into the store, there were dozens of other people there picking over the shelves.

Wiping her feet on the mat just inside the automatic sliding doors, the brunette looked around. There were all sorts of people there, though none she immediately recognized. She'd walked in just after a woman with blue hair, of all things - there really was one of every kind here in Pilot Ridge. The forty-year-old let out a barely audible sigh of 'Oh Jesus Christ' directed at nobody in particular as she tried to leave her body for what would be a very crowded, pushy shopping experience.

[Celia Gaines]

Plenty of people to flirt with and snuggle with, though sadly this was not what Celia was there to do. She was there to do shopping, though the amount of people already in the store would make that difficult, she assumed. But perhaps the store was bigger than anticipated and what she needed would still be available. And maybe she'd even find some stuff she wouldn't need but was handy for using in and around the house. That she was a metal singer didn't mean she would just let everything around her wither, god no.

As she acclimated a bit to the store and taking in its size she scanned around to see where she would go first, only being stopped in her thought as the door closed behind her. She turned around and saw that she hadn't been the last one to enter, some old looking woman had entered behind her. And upon some more inspection she really looked old. Like forty or something.

Quickly she averted her gaze though as she assumed it would be seen as snooping when in reality she was doing no such thing. She thought she wasn't, anyway. She coughed then as the woman behind her let out a small sigh, that due to the sounds of the store was barely heard but because of watching her from the corner of her eye she could see the mouth move. She clearly said 'oh Jesus Christ'

Celia smiled and nodded at the woman, trying to look past the fact she was old. Ancient, really. ''Not too sure he is going to help you out here.''

[Julia Taylor]

The soft-spoken exclamation had only been meant for her own ears, but Julia had evidently spoken just loud enough for the blue-haired woman to hear her. Which was unfortunate, because of all the strangers in the store, she was probably the person Julia least wanted to interact with. People with weird hair tended to have weird personalities, and the English teacher had enough trouble interacting with strangers without having to worry about eccentricities. This was completely unfair, and Julia knew she should be roundly punished for being so prejudiced, but these were trying times!

She wasn't a rude person, though, so when the younger woman offered a funny little comment, the brunette responded in kind. "Well, if He didn't help keep my power on, I guess I can't expect Him to help me find a cart..." She said, somewhat sardonically, though with a smile on her face that attempted to make light of her situation. Indeed, as Julia looked around, it seemed like all of the shopping carts were taken, as well as just about every basket. That was quite an inconvenience, as Julia needed more than she could hope to carry in just her two hands. She resolved to look around a bit more,
determined to find something that could help her with her load. Of course, this was assuming the shelves weren't completely picked over by the time she got to them.

"I'd ask you if you knew where the empty carts were," she said to the blue-haired woman, "but, I'm assuming you don't work here." She supposed it was possible that she was just starting her shift, but Julia doubted that. But maybe the younger woman came to this particular store more often than she did and would be able to provide some assistance. She would play the Frazzled Mother Card if she had to.

[Celia Gaines]

It took a while for the woman to respond, likely due to all the dust she had gathered over the years, but finally she replied in pretty much the same way she had. Good, so she hadn't struck some religious person that would undoubtedly make everything about the encounter awkward. In fact, if she was religious Celia would be urged to move on as fast as possible seeing as she was pretty much a walking sin. Wasn't being gay abhorred or something? If so then cool, Celia was part of an elite group not allowed in to heaven, forever condemned to one giant gay bar with all the lawyers in the world!

Celia sighed then at her words, though she was trying to jokingly sigh if that was a thing that you could do. ''Men..'' She shook her head and smiled lightly. ''What would they do without us?'' Probably turn gay, like Celia had. And it turned out she had more luck with women than she had with men despite the fact they were really, really easy to tease.

But enough with those thoughts, this woman in front of her didn't seem to strike her as someone who would be appreciative of those kind of thoughts so Celia knew she ought to act a bit more her age instead of.. being a male teenager. (which she lacked the needed appendage for) She then stuck out her hand as she smiled at the woman in front of her with the idea that talking would be much more easy if they knew the names of each other.

This would actually be the first time her blackened nails would touch a woman without the intent to sleep with her. ''Hi, I'm Celia and I don't work here.'' She joked. ''Sorry.''

[Julia Taylor]

Julia didn't reply to the stranger's remark about men. She didn't really see Jesus as a "man," at least not in the same way she saw her husband or her coworkers as men, but that wasn't why she didn't respond. While the blue-haired woman was talking, Julia had closed her eyes, quickly scanning the immediate future to ensure that this woman wasn't going to turn out to be really weird. The brunette used her power as a crutch much of the time, and it was nice to have the comfort of certainty. Once she confirmed that she would indeed leave the SuperKwik unharmed, she opened her eyes back up - the scan having taken only a few seconds - just in time to see the woman's hand approach.

She took it, giving it a shake. "Hi, I'm Julia and I'm disappointed," she replied with a grin and without missing a beat. The teacher could have something of a sense of humor when she wanted to - or, at least, when she wasn't feeling anxious about whatever social situation she was in.

It was at that moment when another woman, having paid for her things, parked her shopping cart by the door and, grabbing her bags out of the front of the cart, headed out of the store leaving an empty and now-unoccupied cart right beside Celia and Julia. The brunette smiled at this development, quite pleased that she wouldn't have to carry all of her items in her hands. She reached for it, looking back up at the younger woman as she did so. "I don't suppose you'd like to be cart buddies," she offered. At least, that would be better than fighting her for it.

[Celia Gaines]

Her hand was taken and the woman shook hers, giving her name and responding to the joke if it could be called that. It was the truth after all. It wasn't like everyone with eccentric hair worked at a supermarket or something, and while the blue haired woman did not take much offense to that she did let her hand linger a bit at the exact moment she said that. But that wasn't just because of what she said.

''Kleptomania and depression.'' She replied with a slight smile as she finally shot the response back. ''Now we need an alcoholic and a nymphomaniac and the sad people meeting can start.'' Although with a nymphomaniac on board there wouldn't be much of a party to be had for Celia due to her.. well.. willing nature.

But that still wasn't what had her pause a bit, even though she took a while to come up with that one. ''You have a power, don't you?'' She finally said, and the question part of that sentence was actually rhetoric as she had been touching Julia long enough to figure out that she had a power and even what it was. ''Seeing the future is cool.''

She shrugged and took her hand back as the woman asked her to be cart buddies is a.. weird way. Celia wondered how cart buddies would even work.. would they.. share the same space in the cart and risk getting the wrong items? Would be odd if Julia ended up with stuff Celia needed, and probably vice versa too.

She shrugged once more, but this time with a smile. ''Maybe you should look into the future and figure out.''