Ryan had been streaming himself on his phone doing some cooking in place of his usual gaming stream, not really feeling up to playing a game that required a lot more thought than something as simple as cooking. Even if it was only simple to him.

A few of the people in his chat had been unable to refrain from making snide comments about needing to clean out his fridge. They got timed out of chat for a while by his lovely mods whom he loved dearly, but it still didn't stop him from feeling bad about how he'd let his fridge get out of control. He was supposed to be a professional, damnit.

He sighed to himself after he finished wrapping up his cooking stream and asked for people to share how their progress had gone (for anyone who'd been following along) in his discord server. Okay. Clean up, go to the grocer.

No, brain, now is not the time to sing the stupid pie song from Sweeney Todd, stop that.

Groaning as the earworm took hold and refused to let go, he started tossing things out of his fridge. Once he finished, he whimpered at how empty it looked and realized how much he'd have to spend to get it looking normal again. Damnit, again.

He hauled a** to the store, taking the time to walk there to save money. He could call for an Uber after to get him home with all the groceries he'd need to be buying today.

Popping his headphones in as he walked inside to hopefully erase the blasted earworm circling his thoughts, he started collecting his items. Before long, he had a half full cart, and stood in front of a fridge, comparing a few different dips to decide which to buy to go with his chips.

Which is where everything decided to just go even more wrong than his day already had been.

Someone grabbed his arm and forcibly whirled him around, his hands releasing the couple of dips he'd just grabbed to put into his cart and they burst open as they hit the floor, making a mess.

The lady who'd grabbed him was clearly screaming and he pulled his earbuds out.

"—now look what you've done, I demand compensation!" she—well, demanded.

"Excuse me?" he said, flabbergasted. His body had been gearing up for a fight, and the adrenaline rush was making his heart pound wildly.

"You just threw dip at me!" she screeched,, gesturing to a few spots on her shoes, "And you completely ignored me when I called for your attention! I need help finding this!" She shoved her phone in his face, with a picture of some product that Ryan did not care about. He refused to even try to register what it was, lest he accidentally help this crazy harpy.

"Listen to me very closely. I. Do. Not. Work. Here," he said slowly, incredulously. "I am shopping. You just assaulted me. Didn't they teach you in kindergarten not to hit people?"

She gasped, affronted, and looked Ryan up and down.

He gestured to the tee he had on, proudly displaying "Gettin' Bi" in fancy font over shirt colors that were a gradient of the bi flag. "See? Not a uniform. Don't work here."

"Freak," she spat at him, "I'll have your job for this! Working and not wearing a uniform, even displaying you're one of those homos!"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "I thought bitches like you were bad characters in stories people made up on reddit," he said acerbicly, "Fine, go get a manager, so he can laugh at your dumb a** too."

She let some more bullshit fly from her mouth as Ryan turned to grab a dip from the fridge, one that hadn't been busted open because of some crazy lady. He tossed it into his cart and then checked himself over for any dip globs he needed to wipe off. Ugh. Thank God he always carried a couple of little packets with a wet wipe in them. He ripped one open and cleaned off the worst on the edges of his pants and shoes with a deep, heavy sigh.

He'd literally rather fight someone than deal with this kind of absolutely headassery from people. He still couldn't believe this was actually happening; he hadn't been lying when he said he thought these were just crazy stories people on reddit made up to collect the karma points or whatever so they could.... what, brag about their fake internet points? Whatever, it's not like he had to apologize to anyone about it, having kept those thoughts to himself.

It would be a really fun story to tell on his stream tomorrow, though.

An actual employee happened by, then, he alerted them to the mess and explained about the cuckoo Karen running around, probably trying to find a manager.

"Hah, yeah... It happens more often than you'd think," the employee (Nate, according to the tag) said with a tired smile. "I'll for a janitor in a sec and let the managers know what happened."

"Thanks. Be careful, she's totally ready to just up and grab people, apparently," he warned, before taking off to go to the next aisle. He really hoped he could just grab the last of his items and get out of there before she showed up again.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. As he rolled up to the checkout stands, he heard her scream.

"THERE! That's the man that yelled at me and called me a b***h, I want him fired!"

Ryan inhaled slowly, turning to face the manager, who absolutely looked done with the situation already, and the crazy lady.

"Shut up, Karen, nobody cares. Don't grab people and maybe you won't be called a b***h," he deadpanned. "Also, I still don't work here."

"Okay, ma'am, this young man doesn't work for me and never has," the manager said sternly, "Please leave this establishment."

"He called me the K-word!!! That's just as bad as the N-word!!!" she hollered.

"Oh my ******** god." Ryan rubbed his hands over his face.

"Stop harassing this guy, lady!" called out a fellow customer, "He doesn't work here and you're being really rude because you made a mistake!"

"Mommy, the mean lady doesn't know how to use her inside voice like I do!" chimed in a little boy in the most smug tone Ryan had ever heard from a child.

He covered his mouth with a hand to cover up his laughter, though nobody else did.

"She needs a time out, right Mommy?" the child continued loudly, contrary to his statement about inside voices. Ryan had a feeling the mother wouldn't mind, though, judging by the way she also looked like she was holding back laughter.

"She definitely does," the woman agreed.

The Karen lady just stood there, mouth gaping open like a fish, for several moments before rushing out of the store, blustering about suing for defamation.

"Thank God that's over," Ryan muttered. The person in line in front of him gestured for him to go through first.

"I couldn't," he said, "You only have a few things and you got in line before me."

"Yeah, well, I think you'd probably like to go home a little faster than me after dealing with that," they said with a grin.

Ryan laughed a little. "You're not wrong," he admitted, "But I can wait the extra, wait, two, three minutes it'll take you? I'm a big boy. I went to Kindergarten, I know how to wait in a line and not hit people, unlike some other people who shall remain nameless. Mostly because I have no idea what her name actually was, but... Eh."

The other customer snorted, shaking their head. "Fair enough. But I also went to Kindergarten, and sharing is caring, so go first."

Ryan snorted again, reluctantly moving forward to take the place of the kind person. "I'm only doing this because I have a feeling you won't stop insisting on being extra polite," he said with a teasing grin.

"You're damn right," they said with a much smugger grin. "I can out-stubborn anyone. Except the wife."

"Alright, alright. Thanks," he said, trying to inset as much genuine feeling into it as he could. He loaded up the belt with his items and paid without really paying attention to the amount. It seemed correct to him, so it didn't matter.

It was only after he got home after calling a second Uber because the first one drove off on him (despite accepting the job knowing Ryan had groceries!) that he realized the cashier had given him a 10% discount on his items. Most likely because of the fiasco he'd dealt with.

He didn't want to go back to the store and fight it, as much as he internally protested it. He was far too tired, and decided to just take the kindness for what it was, put his groceries away, and go the hell to bed.