2019-12-07 - Small Talk on Aisle 12

Walking a bit distractedly down the HBC aisle, Abitha has her phone in her hand. Her other arm looped through the handles of a shopping basket, she scrolls through some things, checking items off mentally. She wears a thick green sweater over a dark red skirt, black leggings tucking into boots beneath. The basket already full of a few things like painkillers, peroxide, and bandaids, she hefts the weight of it a little as her chin finally lifts. Green eyes peer at the shelves to look for something, squinting up, then down the aisle. Gauze. She pulls a roll of it off and drops it in the basket, adjusting again. It was getting heavy, maybe she should have grabbed a cart...

Not far off Abitha, Zach wanders aimlessly through the aisles. "Shampoo, shampoo.." he mutters to himself, basket held loosely in one hand. "Aha!" he crows as he finds what he's looking for, grabbing a bottle and dropping it into the basket. It seems to be store-brand, the man checking the price carefully before he moves on. "...Probably should get some toothpaste," he decides with a frown, looking for that next. His path takes him closer to Abitha.

Abitha glances up as she hears the other traveler of the aisle talking to themselves. She didn't look concerned per say, its not like she didn't occasionally verbally remind herself of things she needed to do. Being the person she is, she is overly cognizant of people's space, so she steps backwards to let him past as she looks down at her phone for the next item on her list. Of course, that meat she was standing right in front of toothpastes, like the awkward nerd she was.

Zach blinks around the aisle, trying to spot the toothpaste. When he finally notices that it's behind Abitha he strikes up a ready smile, tilting his head to the woman. "Hi! Uh, sorry, do you mind if I just reach past you for the toothpaste?" he asks hopefully.

"Oh. Uh... My bad." she quickly takea a step sideways, eyes lifting up briefly to meet his, then darting away again. She hurriedly identifies and locates the next thing on her list and tosses some aspirin into her basket. A second bottle, probably a nervous mistake. Another shift of the weight, eyes returning to her phone.

"Hey, all good," Zach says with an easy wave of his hand. He glances down to the basket on Abitha's arm, an eyebrow raising. "That's a.. lot of stuff," he says, trying to strike up a conversation. "Expecting trouble?" he asks with a laugh.

Glancing down, Abitha realizes just what he meant by that, and also recognizes the second bottle of aspirin. She lets out a little puff of air just short of a self-deprecating laugh, "Oh, ha... No. Um... OSHA required First Aid kit. For my store." The duplicate is pulled out and replaced on the shelf.

"Ahh," Zach says in realisation, nodding sagely. "That bit is never fund, as I understand it. Not really somehting I've had to deal with, buying first aid kits," he says with a self-deprecating grin. "What kind of store do you run?" the man asks curiously, leaning against one of the shelves as he listens, carefully picking out the cheapest toothpaste.

"The Control Pad." Abitha states, stepping up and having to go up on her toes to grab down a container of burn cream. She makes a face as she looksndown at her phone and tosses it in. What the hell did she need that for? "Gaming store. PC, PlayStation, XBox, Nintendo. Lotta retro stuff too." She glances to him, nonjudgement as to the store brand on her face. Oh right, human stuff. "I'm Mac." She offers a single swipe motion of her hand to represent a wave.

"Zach," the man returns in kind, waving a tube of toothpaste at Abitha before he drops it into the basket. "Nice, nice. Wish I could say I had the time, or the hardware," he admits with a wry smile, glancing aside. "Used to love to play but, not got a lot of space in my car these days, huh?"

A brow quirks, the expected reaction when two and two don't add up, Abitha looking at Zach a little confused. As much as politeness would dictate such a look would be improper, Abitha's eyes do a brief down-up, the sort of measuring look someone might take the wrong way, even though in Abitha's case, she was just trying to identify the variables to the problem she missed, "In your car? Why would you play games in your car?"

Zach laughs quietly, shaking his head at the question. "I mean.. I travel a lot," he explains. "So I've gotta keep things light, y'know? Clothes and shit take up most of the space," he says with a shrug. "Can't guarantee I'm gonna have something to plug it into, even if I did have space for a gaming system."

"Ohhh..." The look of dawning recognition on Abitha's face precede, "That makes sense," the little gamer taking it at face value. "Hey, there's a big market for mobile gaming because of stuff like that. No hate." Speaking of mobile, her phone is peered at again, and she glances around the aisle again. She sighs as her eyes fall on another rarely bought, therefore high up item. An eye flushing bottle. "I shoulda just ordered the damn kit..." she mutters to herself.

"I was gonna ask if they came in.. like, kits or something, but I guessed you probably knew better," Zach says with an easy shrug, pushing himself off the shelves as he peers over at the cans of deodorant spray. "Hey, you know anywhere that might be hiring a bartender?" he asks hopefully.

Answering with a heavy shrug, Abitha looks back to Zach briedly as she reaches up high to grab the bottle and alings it into her basket, "Pourhouse? I dunno, I thought i heard they were hiring, anyways. Maybe a couple weeks back. It's over on Spruce." Right across from her shop, but irrelevant to the converaation in her mind... Or maybe obfuscating the fact she went there for beers after work pretty often... "And the Switch is pretty much all-in-one. It's got a screen that the controlers connect to. All you need is to recharge it every so often. If you need to get online, its Wi-Fi." She shifts and hefts her heavy basket again, rechecking her phone. Shit, did she lose her place? Did she need the stuff in the welding list if she did soldering? Her face betrays her frustration.

"yeah? I'll have to check it out. Think that was one of the places I got told about last night as well, probably a good sign, right?" Zach says with a hopeful grin. "Still, shouldn't keep you from your work, hey?" he says with a gesture at her basket before he adds a few more things to his. "Nice to meet you Mac. Sure we'll run into each other again," he says with a smile, turning to wander off towards the cashiers.

Abitha waves after the departing homeless man, thinking his goodbyes encompassed all that needed to be said and leaving it at that.

Fuck, this basket was heavy. Slowly, she looks around to see if anyone was watching, then... She seems to stop struggling to hold it up. She wasn't acting before, and its not like she would suddenly get stronger... Did the basket get lighter?.. She finishes her shopping and heads out.