Littlepip Goes to the Grocery Store
Littlepip Goes to the Grocery Store
I sighed, searching through the pantry shelves for at least the fifth time. “Velvet, where are my rice cakes?!”
“I don’t know, I don’t eat them!” Velvet shouted from the other room. “If they’re not in the pantry, you’ll have to go buy some more!”
My mood, already dampened at not getting to enjoy my favorite afternoon snack, plummeted even further. “Ughhh, can’t Calamity go this time?”
“I went last time, Littlepip,” Calamity called out from the den, cheers and commentary from the TV within accompanying him. “It’s your turn to do the shoppin’. Hey, pick me up some Miracle Mycelium, would ya? It works really well on hoof itch, and mine are itchin’ mighty bad lately. Oh, come on, ref! That was a foul!”
“Homage!” I yelled, hoping she’d at least save me from a solo excursion. “We gotta go shopping!”
"Not right now!" Homage unhelpfully replied. “I’m getting ready to record for my podcast, you know my schedule!”
Velvet appeared in the doorway of the pantry, holding out a piece of paper in her magic. “Here’s the list. Don’t forget the milk!”
I let out the longest, loudest, most painfully grating groan I could muster before snatching the shopping list from Velvet. “Fiiiiiiiiiiine-uh!”
I could feel a scowl cementing itself on my face before I even walked through the sliding doors to ‘Absolutely Everything.’ The supermarket chain didn’t technically have absolutely everything, but it had a lot of things, one of those things was rice cakes, and it was the closest place to walk.
“Walk,” of course, was a generous term. It was more like a hike. Why no one in our house ever even considered investing in a motorwagon, I’ll never know.
Wrestling a shopping cart free from the stack, I finally deigned to glance at the shopping list to see what I had to pick up. It looked like the usual fare; I made a mental note to remember Calamity’s antifungal cream, a term which he refused to use for his specific product. “Antifungal cream is for ponies with athlete’s hoof,” he’d said, not even trying to hide his expression of disdain. “What I use, this Miracle Mycelium, is special stuff. It’s got all sorts of breakthrough chemicals in it that re-moisturize the skin and absorb the nasty stuff that gets in those hard-to-clean parts of your hoof, know what I’m sayin’? Right in the frog, that’s the stuff!”
I snorted as I took a bottle of my favorite conditioner off the shelf. Calamity was far too susceptible to advertisers’ wild claims.
“Wait, twenty percent more cleaning power with each use, guaranteed?!” I exclaimed in excitement, reading off the label. “Hell to the yes!” I immediately put ten bottles into the cart as I glanced back at the list for the next item on the list: Coffee grounds for Velvet. She'd said recently that Xenith had turned her on to the idea of coffee over tea, so she wanted to try out one of the milder flavors.
As I began combing the shelves and comparing flavor names, trying to find what Velvet had written on the list, a thought struck me. I glanced around to ensure that the aisle was empty, except for myself. Returning my attention to the shelves before me, I levitated off a bag of hazelnut and a package of the weird nutmeg kind that I doubt anypony actually drinks but still somehow gets sold. (I had long suspected a nationwide conspiracy.) I picked out different kinds and brands until I had eight different bags of coffee all within my telekinetic grasp, circling around me.
I nodded in approval, pumping my hoof towards the artificial lights in the ceiling. I am... the Queen of Coffee! I thought to myself.
Catching movement out of the corner of my eye, I whipped my head towards the end of the aisle to see a colt and his mother staring at me. The colt had a hoof to his mouth and looked like he was trying his hardest not to burst out laughing, while his mother looked horrified.
I stared back for a moment, then replaced the still-orbiting coffee I wasn’t going to buy on the shelves as fast as I could and scooted right the heck out of there.
I continued loading up the cart with fewer moments of, uh, self-indulgence, instead channeling it into locating and depositing the target items into my cart with pinpoint accuracy. Feeling a bit daring, I even took the initiative to purchase two cartons of grape juice at a two-for-one discount. I’ll impress Calamity with my thriftiness yet, I thought to myself. “Okay, next on the list is... bread.” I wasn’t sure why it was so important we had to get more bread while the toaster was broken, but hey, wasn’t my fault. This time, I grudgingly added in my head as I made my way down the aisle containing the last item.
A flash of panic briefly surged through me as I searched the shelves until I found the right one: Our usual whole wheat brand. I reached out with my magic, and it illuminated with a green glow at the same moment a red hoof touched it. Following the forelimb to its source, I found myself staring at an earth pony stallion with a black mane and blue eyes.
Our gazes connected. He narrowed his eyes at me. I leered back. He began glaring daggers. I dipped my head down, not breaking eye contact, snorting hot air through my nostrils. He dug at the floor with a hind leg.
“Excuse me,” I heard from beside us. I looked up to see an impatient tan pegasus, staring at us. “Your cart is in the way.”
I backed up, and he leaned between us to grab a loaf of the same bread the red stallion and I had been in a standoff over off of the shelf below it. Giving us one last cocked eyebrow, the pegasus exited the aisle.
Returning my attention to the earth pony, I let go of the whole wheat in my magical grip and took another from the bottom shelf. We slowly began to move past each other, craning our necks, daring the other to look away until we were both out of each other’s line of sight.
Eventually the red earth pony vanished around the corner, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding before heading in the opposite direction, towards the checkout lanes.
“Finally!” I sighed as I closed the door behind me, bagged groceries in tow.
“Is that you, Littlepip?” Velvet called from the other room. “Give me a minute and I’ll help put everything away.”
“Thanks, Velvet, it’s appreciated,” I said, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge to stuff with some of my spoils. Velvet joined me and together we restocked our food stores.
“I really can’t thank you enough for doing this,” Velvet said as she put the last of the carrots into the crisper. “You’ve been a big help today.”
I smiled at the compliment. “Oh, it was nothing, really.”
Velvet nodded. “Still, it deserves recognition. And now you can enjoy your rice cakes!”
My smile froze on my face.
“...Littlepip?”
I didn’t move. I didn’t even blink.
“Littlepip, did you forget to buy your rice cakes?”
“AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
-The End-
