crossed off the list [josiah]

[nickey]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,300,true] Grocery shopping was certainly not the high point of his week. In fact, it came very low, followed closely by car rides to and from work and other locations and getting the mail. It was one of those mundane tasks that he just had to do in order to get through his day. Sure, some people probably were obsessed with buying their food fresh from farmer's markets, but he didn't have money for that. Not to mention the fact that you could only grow food in certain seasons. Whatever reason he wanted to believe in, he just didn't really care. People needed to eat to survive. The purpose was as plain and simple as that. The entire task of actually going to the store was just one way for the human race to keep going. He had scanned through the advertisement section of the paper, to quickly assess what could wait and what he needed to get. List in hand, he went over it a couple more times before he was content and ready to go (despite his daughter's constant chatter about buying Lucky Charms and some other foods he knew they didn't need, he barely thought their sale was a bargain). He locked the front door before taking his daughter's hand, ready to get this portion of his life over with. Not long after, he was pushing a cart down an aisle in the local grocery store. If he didn't need to stop here, he wouldn't. Of course, his daughter had no objections. She was talking about her day with a frenzied passion. One day, that gift of gab was going to help her. Or get her into legal trouble. He hadn't decided which way yet. He was only halfway paying attention as he maneuvered the rickety cart. He paused to glance over a row of cereal boxes, frowning slightly. He didn't even like cereal, and he couldn't remember the last time he actually consumed more than a cup of coffee for breakfast. "Daddy, Daddy!" His light eyes focused on the girl in the cart basket for only a fraction of a second before moving back to the colorful cardboard boxes. He reached out to pick one up. Some kid-oriented cereal with something about reduced sugar and improved recipe printed on it. He flipped it over to scan through the fact. He still thought it was weird that many types of cereal had iron in them. It might have been part of the reason as to why he didn't really like it. "Yeah, sweetheart?" "Can we get Lucky Charms? Or how about Cap'n Crunch? Can we get some Smacks?" He hadn't expected for her to start reeling off every cereal in existence, and he let her rattle off a couple of more before interrupting. "How about we just get some shredded wheat this time? Okay? How does that sound?" She began to protest, before he made another suggestion. "Do you want to go grab a box of shredded wheat?" Every trip to the store began with his daughter saying she wanted to walk the entire way, but they both knew that she would be complaining about it by the end of the trip. Instantly, she stopped protesting and quickly nodded. He smirked to himself as he hoisted the girl out of the cart and set her down. The bouncing girl was off in a blink, dashing down the aisle to pick up the cereal herself. She thought it was a rite of passage, that she was growing older. In reality, he just wanted to keep her from being too upset over shooting down her cereal ideas. He kept his pace slow as he trailed her, shaking his head. One day she wasn't going to get as excited over breakfast food. It was going to be a shame. "Hello, mister." His eyes shot up and he was instantly pulled out of his thoughts. Who the hell was Halley talking to? His brow creased as he neared the end of the aisle, and his gaze darted about until he had located the brunette child. She was babbling away at some total stranger. Didn't schools teach stuff about stranger danger or something like that? "Your shoes are cool looking. Are you going to buy cereal? My daddy and I are getting cereal. My favorite kind is Lucky Charms, but this kind is good too. Daddy likes this kind better, so it's fine. My name is Halley. What's yours'?" He could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks as he figured out how to approach this. They were still red as he stepped closer to his daughter. One of his hands reached out to settle on the top of her curl-covered head. "Sorry about that, man." He released a nervous chuckle. "My daughter really likes to talk. A lot." He glanced down at her as she beamed up at him. That didn't stop the little girl from communicating even further, much to her father's growing discomfort. "Daddy, I'm making a new friend! You can be friends with him too!" "Sweetie, really, that's okay. We should keep going." No, Nickolai Tennyson had better things to do than grocery shop.