“The Horndog Trials? That’s what you’re going with?” Lucy asked as Zoya jotted something down in her notepad.
“Shut up, here he comes!” Zoya whispered, “Wait for my signal….”
“OOH! OOH! IN HERE, IN HERE!!!!” Jamie chirped as she ran over to a seedy looking CD stand.
“Hey, wait up!” Colin called over as he ran right past Lucy.
The brunette watched Zoya rub her nose as Jamie went around the back to giggle at the janky looking album art as Colin turned to a crudely stacked heap of posters.
“Maybe there’s a nice print in this stack… HEY!” Colin said as somebody in a huge baggy hoodie bumped into him.
“Sorry….” Lucy started as she cleared her throat and gave a suuuuper convincingly deep “Sorry bro.”
As Colin started picking up the heap of posters, Lucy slipped one into his hands and stacked the rest up before booking it over to the food court like Zoya said.
“What’s this?” Colin said as he started unfurling a poster of a bunch of weird looking LEGO robot guys.
“Is that an original Bionicle advert?!” Asked a lily pale girl in big square-lensed glasses.
“Candidate 1 has shown interest in the poster sample provided by short brunette gremlin.” Zoya said as her phone buzzed.
Lucy: I heard that! 😡
“Awaiting interaction with test subject…” Zoya said with pencil at the ready.
“What’s Bionicle?” Colin asked.
********** 45 Minutes Later…. ******************
“And that’s when Mata Nui lands on the desert planet and makes a new, regular-sized, body for himself. He unites the people of the planet, and they find the original giant robot and repair it. Mata Nui uses this body to fight Terridax when he comes to the desert planet, while also setting in motion the reunification of the three fragments of the planet. And it was thanks to Tahu of the Toa Mata getting an upgrade left behind by-“
The strange woman kept going as Colin sighed, swaying as he tried to not fall asleep in the middle of the mall.
“Colin, Colin, I found some!” Jamie said as she ran up with three very likely bootlegged CDs. “But I don’t know which one to-“
“ALL THREE, I’LL BUY ALL THREE AND THIS CD PLAYING THING JUST FOR YOUUUUU!!!!” Colin smiled as his cheerleader girlfriend bounced around and kissed him right in front of the rambling stranger.
Zoya watched him make his desperate escape as the first candidate sighed whistfully.
“Candidate one was unsuccessful, only knowledge gathered is more than I would ever care to know about a bunch of LEGO sets…” she noted.
“Candidate one?” Bionicle woman asked.
“Nothing! It’s nothing!” Zoya said as she ran towards the sound of Jamie’s terrible singing in tune to her “new” walkman.
————————————————————————
“Okay Shara, you’re up!” Zoya whispered as she wrote “Introducing Candidate two…..”
Colin took a seat as he sipped his afternoon pick me up as he listened to some disco on Jamie’s walkman… even if it was in Spanish it was still better than “Matoran” this and “Toa” that on and on and on.
“Okay Lisa, do your thing.” Shara whispered.
Lisa nodded to her bestie, scribbling on her whiteboard so fast that her titties nearly popped her blouse open as she started ringing the bell.
“Fifty percent off ice cream!!!!” Lisa called out.
“Ice cream?!” Jamie perked up as she ran up to the line forming in front of Lisa’s cart.
“Lisa runs an ice cream cart?” Colin thought aloud, “You learn something new everyday…”
A bunch of children ran right past him as the twenty something freckled brunette watching them from the same bench Colin was sitting at.
“Wait your turn, everyone!” She called out to the back of the line as seven kids at the back of the line waved to her.
“Wow, you sure have a lot of kids… your man’s gotta be super tired…” Colin awkwardly chuckled.
“Those are my brothers and sisters.” Candidate two replied, “My parents are busy at the ministry today…”
“Oh.” Colin said awkwardly ad he took a huge sip of his caramel apple cappuccino.
“Are you waiting on any little ones of your own?” She asked probingly.
“Oh…. Uhhhh….” He paused.
“Colin, Where’s my wallet?” Jamie called out, “Did I like, give it to you or something?”
“Check your pockets!” Colin called.
“It’s not in there!” Jamie said.
“Your…. Other pockets….” Colin said awkwardly.
“Ohhhh duh!” Jamie said as she blew a raspberry and tried prying it out of the back pocket of her shorty short jorts with “Yum Yum” bedazzled on the pockets.
‘Of course she picked…. those…. note to self; tonight we’re picking up some pants as well as lube….’ Colin thought.
“You can’t seriously tell me someone like you would rather be around that shameless heathen when you could marry someone worthy of mothering your children.” Candidate two interjected as Colin did a spit take that nearly drenched the Walkman.
“Excuse me?” Colin asked as Jamie finally got her wallet free.
“You deserve better than that.” She asserted, “I can talk to my father and we can plan out our courtship and marriage-“
“Woah Woah Woah, first of all I JUST met you; secondly, you insult my girlfriend TO MY FACE; and thirdly-!” Colin started shouting as passersby stopped to watch.
“Candidate two is creating a scene, abort, abort!!!” Zoya whispered into her phone.
Shara waved her hand around as Lisa FINALLY got Jamie’s change counted out.
“Can’t you see this meeting is a sign from our savior?!” The brunette demanded.
“The only sign I’m getting is that it’s time to leave, come on!” Colin shouted as he grabbed Jamie by the wrist and pulled her away.
“Well, that went well….” Lucy sarcastically quipped as she took a big lick of her seven gumball eyed SpongeBob popsicle.
“Just shut up and text Sam!” Shara snipped.
———————————————————————-
‘Okay, you got hit with a literal Toy Story, AND a sermon in front of a bunch of soccer moms, but hey, nobody had their phone out, she’s not chasing you, everything’s cool now….’ Colin sighed as Jamie lead him to a small biker themed grill and bar at the far west end past the Victoria’s Secret and the Hot Topic. ‘No way she’s gonna follow you here.’
Sam set her beer down as she got the text.
Lucy: Shara fucked it up completely, your turn to take a crack at it.
The blonde Amazon looked over to see Zoya seated at a Froyo Zone, pencil and paper at the ready.
Sam watched carefully as she order another round.
Colin noticed Sam immediately, eager to try and talk out the crappy day he was having.
“Come talk with me when she leaves the table.” He wrote on a napkin in sharpie as he wadded it up and tossed it across the room.
“What was that?” Jamie asked.
“Nothing…” Colin smiled as Sam caught the napkin and tossed it to another table when he wasn’t looking.
All of a sudden, Jamie’s phone was ringing.
“Oh my god, I gotta take this!” Jamie said as she got up and walked to the bathroom to take a call from Lisa.
“I just got off my shift, are you like, okay?” Lisa asked.
“Totally!” Jamie smiled.
Colin tried waving Sam over and noticed the cluster of empty pint glasses as she wobbled around with a buzzed smile.
‘I should’ve guessed… wait, where’s the note?’ He thought.
And that’s when a drunk chick with a messy looking braid in a leather vest walked up to him holding the napkin.
“Hey baby, how’s it going?” She said as her beer breath blew in his face so hot and heavy Colin needed to put his wings down.
“Fine I guess….” Colin said.
“Trust me, I can tell what’s bugging you…” the husky voiced woman smiled.
“Really?” Colin perked up.
“Yeah… you’re tired of those basic ass plastic Barbie bitches and wanna try somebody with a little more… power…” She grinned “And trust me, I’m gonna fist that ass so hard you’ll be seeing stars…”
“Candidate three asserting dominance over subject, assessing effectiveness of this methodology…” Zoya said as she took a bite of Froyo, “Also reconsidering combining sour crawlers with mango gel beads and toffee chunks…”
“I need to pee…” Colin paused as he slowly backed up all the way into the bathroom.
Colin ran out of the restaurant bathroom literally covering his ass as the biker chick called , “It’s just my hand going up there, it’s not that bad dipshit!!!!”
————————————————————————
“This has been the worst trip I’ve ever taken here….” Colin sighed.
“I’m gonna wager this little ‘experiment’ was a total bust….” Lucy said to Zoya.
“Well none of you actually picked any of our candidates, you just grabbed the nearest singles and hoped it worked out!” Zoya snapped.
“Can I try?” Lisa asked.
“Sure… why not?” Zoya sighed.
Lisa grabbed a ball and smashed a spider under the table before heading over to Jamie.
“Hey I found the ball you got from the gumball machine!” She smiled.
“Awwwww thanks… AHHHHHH SPIDER!!!!” Jamie shrieked as she hacked the bouncy ball away and hit someone in the back of the head. “HE DID IT!!!”
Colin looked over to see Jamie running away as he turned to face yet another stranger heading his way.
“Oh so you think you’re reaaaaaal funny….” The angry blonde glared and she grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and pinned him to the wall, her face inches away as she snarled “Well here’s a punchline just for-“
“So you do have a date for your sister’s wedding!” An old lady smirked as she hobbled over.
The angry blonde jumped and stammered “Gramma! Oh no no no, this isn’t, he’s not- I don’y even-“
“We’ll be seeing you two on Tuesday…” the old lady smiled as she handed him an envelope and hobbled away.
Colin broke the silence “So are you still gonna punch me or-“
“Just don‘t be late!”she huffed, her hazel eyes shooting like daggers.
“…. THAT WORKED?!” Lucy said out loud.
“Shut up and follow me…” Sam glared.
“Where are we going?” Lisa asked with a head tilt.
“To get some dresses from the Bouvier’s on the top level…” said Sam “we’ve got a wedding to crash…”