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Emet-Selch didn’t need to show a Costco membership ID. His scintillant Convocation mask was enough, like a strawberry poison dart frog was enough to shoo predators away. In this case the predator was a bored employee smacking gum and not actually caring. This metaphor was running away, just like Azem was running away to grab samples.
Every Convocation member was automatically a Costco member too, which was a great perk. Often the only thing Emet-Selch needed to buy was a mountain of ibuprofen, because he could simply create everything else he wanted. Still, not everyone was a genius like him. And some people just enjoyed getting lost in the expansive concrete aisles. Once Azem accidentally got locked in overnight and the store managers found her eating raw lettuce in the freezer the next morning.
Hythlodaeus, Emet-Selch’s achingly beautiful husband, was pushing a shopping cart along and admiring the kumquat trees. There were so many kumquat trees.
Hythlodaeus opened his mouth.
“No,” said Emet-Selch.
“I didn’t even say anything yet,” said Hythlodaeus.
“Look at what I found,” said Azem. She lugged a twenty-foot skeleton behind her. It was only September but it was never too early for Halloween stuff.
“No,” said Emet-Selch.
The three of them walked side-by-side like those groups of annoying shoppers who just had to take up as much space as possible, but since they were a bisexual poly couple it was okay for them to do that. Hythlodaeus floated towards the deli section like a lavender luna moth and gracefully took some samples of salami to share with his beloved. That was just how gracious and wonderful Hythlodaeus is. Truly there was no better man on the face of Etheirys.
Azem scurried back with a box of chocolate chip cookies, and another box of boring oatmeal raisin cookies for Emet-Selch’s boring tastes. Azem was cute too, in a gopher sticking its head out of a golf course type of way.
“Do they sell weed at Costco,” asked Hythlodaeus.
“I’m so sorry, my love,” said Emet-Selch with a heavy heart. “They do not.”
“Oh.”
He could not bear to see his darling Hythlodaeus disappointed. He will have a very stern word with the CEO of Costco later, and demand that they stock the finest of weeds.
Azem filled the cart with fifty bundles of toilet paper and they went to check out.
For lunch, the three of them went to get the fabled $1.50 hot dog and soda combo. Back in the days of paradise, people just turned cubuses into hot dogs, but now there was something called food safety and hot dogs were made from pigs. Emet-Selch got Diet Coke. Hythlodaeus got Sprite, because he was as lovely as a flower sprite. Azem made a horrific concoction of every single drink from the machine like a gremlin. What the fuck is wrong with her.
They sat down at the least crumb-covered table and ate their hot dogs. Suddenly, there was a huge peal of thunder, loud enough to give everyone tinnitus. A great bolt of lightning tore down from the heavens and completely obliterated the entire Costco except for the food court.
Emet-Selch woke up. There was no lightning. It was just magitek weaponry tests outside the palace. Hythlodaeus was still dead, Azem was still dead, and these malformed abominations could never conceive of hot dogs, much less ones that only cost a buck fifty.
He got up and checked the expiration date on his aspirin.