Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Folken Goes to Sam's Club ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Escaflowne. I don't own Twizzlers, Jay's Hot Stuff potato chips, a 1985 Buick Regal, Salmon Burgers, or Herbal Essences hair products. I'll get over it. I don't even own Charlotte. She is on loan from animation_girl18@hotmail.com. Thank you very much for the use of your character.

Chapter 2

Folken has been piloting Naria's guymelef in jet mode for twenty minutes. While traveling, he admires his surroundings. It is a beautiful spring afternoon; the sun is out, and the sky is a lovely crystalline blue with no sign of rain clouds. "When I get time, I need to work on the lighting system in Zaibach." Folken thinks. He never calls the dark country home.

He was quickly approaching his destination. Below him, a large parking lot can be seen. On the lot, near the entrance to the store, is a huge area that is marked with an electric blue X that is squared in by the same color. It takes up approximately one-sixteenth of the parking lot. This is Folken's usual parking spot. He gently lands the guymelef and gets out. He adjusts his clothes and proceeds to walk toward the store.

As Folken was walking to the store, an elderly couple driving a 1985 Buick Regal observes him. "Remember when that was handicapped parking spaces, Ned." The wife commented to her husband driving the car.

"Sure do, Martha." Ned responds. He then proceeds to circle around to find a parking space.

At the entrance, Folken gets one of the remaining shopping carts. After walking five feet with it, the cart gains a mind of its own veering to the right when Folken is pushing it straight ahead. Folken sighs and grabs another cart which is much more cooperative. Folken reaches into his pocket to pull out his "Sam Club Elite" membership card and shows it to the door attendant.

When he enters the main part of the store he sees that it is packed. Just up ahead a large group of people are gathered, in the middle of this chaos is a small man wearing the red vest that is typical of Sam's Club employees. "Enter the raffle to win a 53 inch screen color TV," the man bellows. Folken contemplates this for a moment and thinks, "Hmmm. What the heck we could use a TV in the rec room."

After filling out a raffle ticket, Folken gets down to business. He pulls out all the lists and reads them. Many items on the lists duplicate the supplies that he needs like reams of paper and printer ink. "Oh I should be out of here real quick." Folken thinks. He quickly obtains the items on his list and the others. As he was picking up things, he smelled a wonderful aroma. "Oh yes, the samples..." Folken thinks with a smile, "that's the best part." Folken navigates through the many people to get to the sample area.

At the sample area Folken tries several things. He especially liked the teriyaki wings and picked up three bags of those. The salmon burger with dill sauce was a whole 'nother story. It was definitely not to his liking.

As he was making his way out of this particular section he heard a voice say, "Excuse me sir."

Folken turns around and sees a sweet faced middle-aged woman.

"Oh man," Folken thinks, "she gets me every time."

He walks over to the woman and she smiles warmly at him. "Good afternoon sir. It's a lovely day today isn't it," She says politely.

Folken smiles back at her and says "Good afternoon to you ma'am. It is very pleasant out."

"Would you like to try some of our chicken salad, sir?"

"I hate chicken salad!" Folken thinks. What he says out loud is "Sure, why not."

The woman proceeds to put a spoonful of the chicken salad on a cracker, then places that on a napkin and hands the finished product to Folken.

Folken internally braces himself as he raises the chicken salad covered cracker to his mouth. He is tempted to swallow the disgusting finger food whole but he decided not to risk chocking. He chews the cracker quickly and swallows. "Mmmm...tasty," Folken says convincingly, maybe a little too convincingly.

"Why darling you just tore that up. Would you like to buy some?"

"No, not really." A voice in the back of Folken's mind replies.

"I would love to." Folken responds with a generous smile that was sincere.

The nice sample lady turns around and reaches into the freezer behind her, and hands him a 5 lb tub of chicken salad.

"Have a nice day, sir!" she says sweetly.

"You too." Folken said as he waved to her. "Well everyone else likes it so it's no big deal." he thinks.

As Folken finally made his way out of the sample section he remembered that he didn't see Naria and Eriya's list. "It must be in my other pocket." he thinks.

Folken reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a list written on pink paper. As he glances at it, he sees that there are hand drawn smiley faces on it. Folken smiles and thinks "those two are so sweet." The first item he sees on the list are gel pens. He goes and gets those and while he's at it he picks up four types of stationary for them. He goes through their list one item at time. As he was walking he sees the snack section. He picks up a package of Twizzlers because those are Naria and Eriya's favorites. He also saw a bulk pack of Hot Stuff potato chips, which are his favorite.

Folken knowing that he was nearing the end of the twins' list took one final look at it. When his eyes spotted the last item on the list they grew very wide. "Oh this is just wonderful. It's time to go incognito," he thinks with a feeling of dread. He flips the collar to his cloak up higher than usual to hide his features.

He quickly heads toward the aisle where the cotton swabs are. Folken looks among certain boxes in the section. He is very deep in thought. He looks back to the girls' list to see if it is of any assistance. Unfortunately, it is not.

"Is it the blue box with the yellow stripe or is it the box with the pink stripe." Folken wonders. Wait a moment.... He remembers the girls telling him not to worry about the color of the stripe but look for the number of stars on the package. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I'll just find the box with the three stars and get the heck out of here," he thinks frantically.

As hard as he looked he didn't find a box with what he was looking for. He then noticed that part of this section was empty. "Oh man they're out of stock." Folken thinks and then sighs deeply. At this point he is willing to pick up anything. As he is about to do just this he sees someone pushing a mountain of stuff. He quickly moves back towards the cotton swabs and shampoo and pretends to be interested in a bottle of conditioner. He plans to continue this charade until the person leaves.

The person pushing the cart happens to be young female employee that is restocking. She appears to be about 18 years old and has shiny dark brown shoulder length hair. She lifts a couple of blue packages with green stripes off the cart and places them in the vacant space in the aisle. Folken observes this out the corner of his eye. "Those packages that the girl is putting up are what I need," Folken thinks, "I wish she would hurry up though." Folken then realizes that he should "inspect" a different bottle of conditioner.

A few moments later Folken notices that he hasn't heard any boxes being restocked. He turns his head to see if the girl has left and he sees that she is still there. What's worse is that she is staring directly at him like a deer caught in headlights. "Do I have underwear on my head or something." Folken thinks. He decides to turn completely around and see what the problem is.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh", the girl says rapidly "I can't believe its you!" She starts jumping up and down giggling. She runs up to him and gazes at him intently with dark blue eyes.

Folken is a little uncomfortable with the girl's scrutiny. He has to look down at the young woman because she only a little bit taller than his shoulder. On her vest there was a nametag that said "Charlotte".

"I KNEW IT! You use Herbal Essences conditioner!" Charlotte exclaims triumphantly.

During all this he forgot that he was still holding the bottle of conditioner in his left hand. His eyes flicked down toward the bottle. "So it is." Folken thinks.

"Just wait 'till I tell my friends that I saw you." Charlotte chortled. Her glee quickly disappeared. "They probably wouldn't even believe me when I tell them," she said solemnly, "I won't have any proof."

The girl looked so sad that Folken wanted to do something nice for her. "What can I do for you Charlotte?" Folken asked nicely.

"Umm...may I have your autograph?"

"Sure, do you have some pen and paper."

Charlotte reaches in the back pocket of her faded jeans and gets a pen. She searches the pockets of her vest to see if she has some paper. All she can find is some lint and a black marker. "Oh nooooo!" she moans despairingly with her hands cupping her face "I don't have any paper." Her eyes light up a second later and she hands Folken the black marker. "I know! Write it on my vest." She begins excitedly "Right over my heart." She then thrusts out her chest.

"Oh man," Folken thinks, "this girl is insane. But if it will make her happy and get her out of the aisle..."

"Okay Charlotte, how would you like me to make it out?" Folken asks the excited girl.

She tells him and after he finishes, she says, "You know what Lord Folken you're my favorite. A couple of my friends think that Dilandau is cute but I told them that you're the T.P."

"'T.P.'? I'm not familiar with that phrase." Folken tells her.

"Oh T.P. means total package. I mean you have it all; the looks and intelligence." she says seriously. Then she blows it when she squeals "You're just so awesome! Can I have a hug?"

"Sure you can." Folken says. With that said she all but tackles him. She reluctantly lets go and says, "It was great meeting you Folkie--uh I mean Lord Folken."

"It was nice meeting you too, Charlotte." She takes her cart and goes to another section of the store.

"Hehhehe. He said my name three times. Three," she thinks with glee.

Charlotte turned out to be less insane than Folken originally thought. With the area clear again he quickly picks up one of the blue boxes with the three stars and moves expeditiously away from the aisle. As he is nearing the check out line, he thinks did he get every thing that he needed. For some odd reason Dilandau's image pops into his mind. "Oh yeah, we need some more soap." He gets the antibacterial kind and steps into the shortest checkout line.

THE END