Couture and Brochures 2

Madeira knew she was probably too picky when it came to shopping for food goods.  Azgad, for all his failings, had brought her up to have very fine tastes and high demands on the quality of her ingredients, though, and she could hardly just shake that off and eat what she found lacking.

At least now she had enough carats coming in a month that it wasn’t as big an issue as it had been…

She had favorite shops for every sort of ingredient.  Some shops had better berries, some had better green vegetables, others made the best noodles, and she bought her flours in bulk from a delightful bun in a more rural area who hand ground their flour.

This particular grocery was her least favorite to shop at, of her favorites, because it was bun forms only.  She didn’t dislike bun forms only shops all the time, but it was a pain for things she would like to buy for her business.  If only she could figure out what farmers were supplying this shop with its stock of herbs, she’d go straight to the source for them instead of dealing with the current annoyance of five bun sized grocery carts strung together to make for the same amount she could buy with one doll sized grocery cart.

As if the grocery lived to spite her, too, there was only one cashier on the registers, and a line of buns waiting to check out.  At least, in the twenty minutes she’d been stuck in the line, she’d managed to reach being third in it…

The bun ahead of her seemed just as impatient as she was, checking the time on their phone and glaring towards the cashier and the magazines.  She couldn’t see more of their face than the eyes, since they were masked, but that wasn’t that unusual.  Some buns were more prone to catching illnesses than others.

“I wish they’d hire more employees,” Madeira sighed.

The other bun huffed.  “The owner is a greed bun,” they said.  “Probably is why they don’t.”

Madeira sighed softly.  “Do you know them?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well, there goes my suggestion that they’d get more business if we could check out faster,” she said.  “If the herbs here weren’t such good quality, I’d never come here.”

“Mmm.”

Well, they didn’t seem eager to talk much more, so she’d have to just keep herself entertained looking around.  At least she was near the magazines now - especially as the bun at the head of the line finally got to pay for their things.

She stared at the magazines as she pushed her cart up a bit more.  Lots of TV and movie stars, some models…  Ugh, why didn’t they stock more cooking magazines?  Did people really care that much about celebrities?  (No, they did - poor Jackal couldn’t go out without getting hassled by buns who just thought it was cool to know one of the first Envies to arrive in Burrowgatory, with next to no consideration for how she felt about any of it or whether she had other priorities…)  It all seemed stupid to her.  Why was anyone that interested in buns they didn’t even know?

Most of the headlines seemed frivolous too.  Who was going to the effort of putting makeup on their legs?  That just seemed absurd.

Inevitably, she noticed there were several magazines featuring the same bun on the cover, both separately and in groups.  Most of them seemed to proclaim interviews with this ‘Velveteen’, though one, clearly a tabloid, claimed they were the first with ‘exclusive’ photos of this person’s bun form.  They must not go out in it much, she figured, which meant the tabloid sounded twice as creepy as it usually did.

She supposed she could kind of see why Velveteen was popular, at the least - very nice hair, the ear patterns were really pretty, face was pretty nice too.  Actually, the ear patterns reminded her of…  She glanced over at the bun in front of her, who was glaring at the magazines again.

They noticed her looking at them and looked away, pulling their ears in front of them.

Maybe they kept to a bun only shop to try to avoid being spotted?

Well, she wasn’t going to spoil that for them.  They’d already made it clear they didn’t want to talk much anyways, and it wasn’t like she gave a shit about who they were.

“All those magazines are trash,” they huffed, suddenly.

“Okay.”

“...well you were looking at them, figured I’d warn you.”

Madeira shrugged.  “My phone died ten minutes ago, it’s not like I have much else to look at right now.  I always wish this place kept more cooking magazines, though, they’re more interesting than celebrity stuff.  Most of them aren’t that good, of course, but every now and then there’s one with a nice recipe or an analysis on the science behind cooking that inspires or interests me.”

“Oh.”  They seemed surprised by that.  “An interesting perspective, I guess.  Not one I see much.”

“Well, Burrowgatory’s a big place, there’s bound to be plenty of perspectives you don’t see much.”

The bun, presumably Velveteen, didn’t really respond to that.  Fortunately, the bun ahead of them didn’t have much to buy, and neither did they.  Soon enough they were on their way, and Madeira was suffering through the ordeal she did every time she came to this store - trying to get five carts’ worth of items onto the belt to be scanned.  Ugh, she really needed to go try some other stores or see if she could find their suppliers.

Only as she left did it occur to her she really should have tried asking Velveteen.  They’d said they knew the owner - maybe they would have known more about suppliers if she had asked…

…would it be weird to try to send a celebrity ‘fanmail’ to ask them about that?

Ehh, whatever, celebrities probably dealt with way weirder.  Hopefully her online ads wouldn’t get poisoned by celebrity nonsense if she searched for how to send him a message to ask.  Even if they did, though…  Anything to get out of the ordeal of shopping at this place.