Creative Scribbles of a History Detective: November 2017

This is a bit late, but here is a Thanksgiving-themed story for the holiday! It is fairly plotless, and probably not very good. Yet, I wrote it to be humorous, so settle in and enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving to all my followers!

He had taken the plunge and strode into the family room, where his siblings and sister-in-law were all gathered together absorbed in various activities and hobbies, grateful for the brief lull of downtime that they had actually had between their fall tour and rehearsals for the Christmas tour.

As a matter a fact, this was the first Thanksgiving that they would actually have at home or the first Thanksgiving that some may say they would have since they had won that reality singing show almost three years ago to date.

Austin, being the best chief and the one who actually enjoyed cooking out of the whole family, was set to make a traditional dinner with absolutely all the fixings.

Yet, since he rather foolishly waited until the last minute to shop for the groceries, he did not want to go brave the madness of the store alone.

Which is why, as he had entered the living room, he had offered a crisp Benjamin to any one of his siblings who were willing to brave the pre-thanksgiving rush at Adam’s Apple supercenter that was nearby their duplex.

He was kinda surprised when Sadie had taken the bait, fully knowing her hatred of a crowded store with people taking their own sweet time without any care for holding other people behind them up; also fully knowing that Austin, her oh so beloved big brother, liked to take his own sweet time in the store when it came to picking out the food elements that he was going to (hopefully) put together for a delicious meal for his siblings.

“Why not? I was bored out of my mind anyway. It’s no fun when we all go do our own individual things,” she had later admitted to him as they had climbed into his truck.

This had earned her a sidelong, somewhat skeptical glance from Austin. The “own things” that they all had were a way to kinda veg out “away” from each other for the most part. It was not healthy, in some aspects, the amount of time they generally spent together with the work that they did, so any chance to “get away” from each other, or at least go do something in smaller pairs, was usually jumped on.

Once inside the store, though, Austin could already tell that his little sister was already regretting her decision. The normally happy, bubbly Sadie who was not upset by much, had a MAJOR issue with busy stores around the holidays.

“Why do all these people have to be as idiotic as us?” she muttered under her breath, glancing at the crowd as she was trying to pull a cart free from the large row of carts, only to grumble under her breath when they were, of course, stubbornly stuck together, as if a little kid had thought it would be the most amusing thing to experiment with large-scale arts and crafts by gluing two carts together while mommy was not looking.

“Dang bag boys,” she muttered under her breath as she tried to pry the carts loose. “Don’t they know that ya ain’t supposed to push these carts so close together so we can actually get them apart to use them to shop. What are they trying to do? Run an experiment to see how the customers can juggle so many groceries single-handedly?”

Austin, meanwhile, had been standing back, watching the battle Sadie was engrossed in with a smirk. In some ways, goin’ to the store with her just to experience her “store road rage” was enough to make last-minute Thanksgiving shopping all worth it. The $100 he was losing out of this whole deal be danged.

“Is it really the bag boys fault, or the fault of the blonde?” Austin ribbed her as he effortlessly pulled two carts apart, earning an eye roll from Sadie as she begrudgingly took a cart. yes, Austin silently admitted, that jab was kinda mean, but the more he ribbed her today, the more amusing this was all going to get. After all, was he only playing his role as the annoying big brother to a t?

He smirked, he could be so much like his twin brother, Ben, when he really wanted to be. This was despite the fact that most of the time, he wanted to be nothing but the nice, caring, loyal, and supportive big brother.

He poked her in the back with his coffee straw for maybe the billionth time that day as they were standing in line at least ten people deep. As a matter, a fact, all likes, including the express lanes, were 8-10 people deep, our so Austin guesstimated.

And now, he was pulling every single page out of Ben’s book of how to annoy people in really long lines, because he was having a blast.

Sure, he was gonna have to sleep with his eyes open for the next few nights, but that was only a minor detail in the grand scheme of things.

Sadie screwed her neck around to make eye contact with him, eyes narrowed down into slits. “Ya know, if I had not gone with you, I would have sworn that Ben was right behind me, not you”.

Austin grinned, taking Sadie’s comment as a genuine compliment. He and Ben were fraternal twins, so they never really had the opportunity to pull all of the what could be considered to be “classic twin pranks” by going to each other’s classes and such when they were little.

Yet, as Sadie sighed, shaking her head as she focused her attention back to the sea of people in front of her, rocking her cart back and forth every so slightly. She knew that this thing of sometimes “abducting” each other’s quirks was their version of a “twin prank”. Though, in retrospect, each of them was prone to kidding around and pulling pranks. In high school, they more often were called to the principal's office for the pranks they pulled rather than their academics, and both of them had been brilliant students.

Another customer run up, another customer out of here, Sadie sighed, moving her cart back just enough to let yet another customer pass. Why people were so insistent on getting to in from one end of the store to another by cutting through lines was beyond her. It was just stupid and a waste of time, except…..

Sadie’s breath caught in her throat as she caught sight of a familiar figure working the checkout lane she and Austin were in.

It just could not be….

It was impossible…

Or was it???

She let go of the death grip she had on the cart, spinning on her boot heels to face her big brother.

“We have to use another lane”.

Now, this was weird behavior for her, Austin thought to himself, feeling curious at the anxiety that has crept into her voice, and also mildly annoyed himself.

“Why? Ya do know it’s gonna be another 45 minutes if we move to another lane, right?”

“It can take two hours for all I care! Just, please don’t make me go through this line,” she glanced at the cashier now four persons ahead of their spot in line, then back to Austin, where a look of recognition was finally dawning on him.

“Chad?! The guy you had such a crush on in high school? Dang, he turned out to be a looker”.

His voice rose purposely with each statement, and with it rose Sadie’s alarm that her former - or still current, from a certain point of view- crush.

“Will you shut up?” she snapped, a bit more harshly than she intended, noting her brother’s hurt look.

“Sorry,” she said, more gently this time. “I just, I can’t approach him, not now”.

“Sis, you are 21. It’s been four years since you even have seen this guy. High school was high school. It’s all full of pranks, puberty, acne, and hormones, or at least that is how it was for Ben and I. If you are really still into him, well then, maybe this is God’s way of giving y’all another chance”.

Yeah, a chance to make a fool of myself, Sadie thought inwardly, then sighed. There was really no two ways she could work like this. It was stupid for her and Austin to go into another line when there was now only three other people behind them. Besides, it was very well and likely that she was deemed to have a nervous breakdown that may or may not require bail money if she and Austin had to spend any longer than the next ten minutes in this place.

“Fine,” she relented to Austin’s reasoning with a grin. “We shall do this your way”.

“My way? Oh, no sis. You are using all the southern charm of yours that the Good Lord had seen fit to give you and you are going to do the talking for this yourself. I don’t know why you are so nervous talking to this gu, to begin with, with how upbeat you usually are and all”.

Kill me now, Jesus. Sadie sent up her silent prayer as she had begun to unload the groceries that were in her cart onto the small foot of space that remained available.

As the belt started to inch closer to the said guy who she had not seen, none the less heard from in two years.

She felt as if though the belt was inching toward her doom.

Because, deep down, she had to admit that...

"Sadie, is that you?"

Dangit, soo close, she thought to herself as her green eyes meant his grey ones.

Stunning, drop-dead grey eyes for the matter of fact.

There was a running joke back at their high school that he was a long-lost "love child" of Robert Downey Jr., with how almost eerily similar he appeared to the actor.

He was just as handsome as the actor too.

"Ummmm, hi?" smooth, Sadie, smooth. She wished she could slam her head against the belt, or that the ground beneath her would open up and swallow her whole.

Anything to spare her this humiliation.

She could almost feel Austin laughing at her. She wished it was legal for her to deck him, right here and now. Or, better yet, she could simply hurl the frozen turkey at his head.

Heaven knows that he was already brain damaged enough. There was even an ongoing joke among the siblings that their mother had dropped each one of the twins on the head on separate occasions. What more harm could a turkey to the head do?

"Hey yourself," the young grocer responded, after what seemed like an eternity - which in all reality had been no more than a fleeting moment - had passed for Sadie.

"Have not seen you except on y'all's youtube videos. How have ya been?" the warmth if his smile, the genuine curiosity of the well being of her family - one of whom she wished did not exist at the moment - tugged at her heartstrings.

"Aw, they are all good. The twins are annoying as usual, though one of them did indeed manage to get married".

"Hey, congrats Austin!" Chad responded with heartfelt enthusiasm, turning away only for a moment to ring up the order ahead of him.

Austin finally let out his laughter in response. "It ain't me, bro, but thanks for the thought".

Chad's eyes widened as he handed the customer their receipt. only half-heartedly making eye contact with them as they hurried off on to their next thanksgiving shopping errand, no matter where it may be. "Ya don't mean?"

Austin's blue eyes twinkled. "Ah, yes he did. Ben has been married to Chloe for almost a year now".

"Well, I'll be. I always knew deep down he had what it took to get the right lady".

"Oh, Chloe is a keeper for sure!" Sadie interjected, smiling at the thought of her sister in law turned best friend for the first time since perhaps this whole ordeal had started almost three hours before. For growing up barely managing to doggy paddle through all the testosterone at home, Sadie had been almost elated when Ben had proposed to Chloe. They had been, up to that point (and still were) the only two women in the nutty acapella ness (who cared if that was even a word) that they had somehow managed to find themselves apart of. Her engagement to Ben not only said that Sadie had gained a sister, but that she was in the band for the long haul as well.

That kind of commitment was sure as heck hard to find these days, from literally any of their so-called "Millenial generation" age group.

"So, by the looks of things I am guessing that you guys are having Thanksgiving at y'all's place?" now, Sadie knew that this guy was now only trying to make casual conversation as he kept methodically scanning and bagging their grocery. He was taking great care, Sadie noted, to make sure that only like items were bagged together. Not many "grocery boys" his age or their age really knew how to that. Most were simply just there for the paycheck and could not give a dang as to if they mixed a customer's cleaning chemicals in with the bread.

Was he really taking great care? Sadie pondered as he carefully studied his movements. Or, was he really trying to impress her?

"Yeah, we are," Sadie finally said, shaking herself out of her daze just in time to answer his question. "Austin is probably the best all-around cook in the family, but we all tend to chip in with our own special dishes", Austin could not help but noticing how his sister seemed to lean her body ever so slightly into the check writing counter (as if anyone really wrote checks anymore anyways these days).

"And what is your special dish, if I may ask?" Austin's smirk blossomed into almost a full-fledged Chesire grin as he witnessed the almost exclusive attention this guy was lavishing on his sister. Those two both currently seemed to be lost in their own little world, and there was nothing, not a dang thing that Austin intended on doing to interrupt them, other them telling rude customers behind him to suck up and have a lick more of the patience that the good lord gave em.

This Chad was a good guy, after all, for being two years under him and his brother. If, and at this point, Austin admitted to himself that the whole thing may or may not be a big if, he and Sadie did decide to take this chance encounter further, he knew that Chad would be good to her. After all, Sadie did have four brothers, one of them was ever so slightly deluded enough that he may actually stand a shot at getting away with murder.

"Broccoli salad," Sadie responded as if it were an answer to a million dollar trivia question, which, as far as Chad was concerned, it was.

"And what goes into this, broccoli salad?"

The way this guy said it made himself almost seem to be a gourmet chief himself, only he worked as a clerk in a grocery store behind a counter, Austin reminded himself.

"It has to be one of the best salad's in the world," Sadie continued, getting an almost "dreamy" look in her eyes. "It combines broccoli, bacon, red onion, sunflower seeds; and last, but most certainly not least, my world famous, secret dressing".

"Secret" was the right word for it, that's for dang sure, Austin thought, mildly irritated. Try as he might, he just could not seem to manage to replicate the sauce in the same way Sadie made it. One of these days thought, he would discover her secret. Cause as long as he and the rest of the siblings were concerned, the broccoli salad Sadie made had a certain effect on a person that even the pickiest of eaters would eat it.

“Wow, I wish I could be around to try it then," Chad flashed Sadie a sincere smile, though Austin could not help but notice a certain sadness in his eyes.

"Well, where are you going for Thanksgiving?" Sadie asked, also having seen his slightly downtrodden expression.

"Nowhere. I know, I may sound like a helpless loser and all. But, airline tickets just cost more than I can afford these days to go back home. I will probably end up having a microwave turkey tv dinner or something".

"No, you won't be having a tv dinner! You will be having dinner right here at our house!"

"I could not! You probably got enough food for just y'all anyway".

"Bro, we got enough to feed two acapella bands. The leftovers we are probably gonna have are most likely going to waste due to the fact we leave for our Christmas tour in about a week".

"Besides, it would be a nice change of pace to have a new face at the table!" Sadie added.

"Yeah, after all, we kinda tend to get tired looking at each other anyway!" Austin added with a smirk.

It was not that far from the truth. The band of six spent almost too much time with each other, anyway. They just (with maybe the exception of Chloe and Ben) could not seem to really go and go their own thing whenever they had a break from tour, as they always wound up coming back together and hanging out with each other.

Chad burst out laughing, causing the shopper behind him to glare at him somewhat irritably.

"All right! all right! What time is dinner?"

Sadie smiled, almost blushing with a rush of excitement as Austin set a time with the handsome grocer.

After all these years, maybe, just maybe, she would finally get a chance with a guy she liked.

That is if her brothers did not screw this up for her like they were prone to do with every other "relationship" she tried to have.

Truly, though, this was set to be a Thanksgiving to remember.