“Frank. You’ve got to look at this.” Barbara’s voice was stern but steady. But when Frank didn’t move from browsing Twitter, she slammed her fists on the desk.
“Frank!!”
“Ok. Ok. I’m coming.” He reluctantly tucked his phone away and looked at the screen Barbara was shrilling over.
“It’s a… shelf?”
“Not just any shelf, Frank.” The words came out of Barbara like a machine gun. “An empty shelf. At the grocery store.”
Frank blinked.
“Don’t you see, Frank? The store is out of peanut butter. And if they’re out of peanut butter, we can’t make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And then what will we eat all week, Frank? What if it’s another hoarding situation like with toilet paper? Did we miss the boat, Frank? Should we have bought in bulk last week? Why didn’t we buy in bulk?”
Barbara was near tears- her usual form.
Frank shrugged. “Didn’t see anyone tweet about a peanut butter shortage. They’re probably just out.”
Britney chimed in, her voice musical, “This would be a great chance to make our own!”
Barbara’s panic quickly shifted from bulk shortage to imposter syndrome.
“We don’t know anything about making peanut butter! Why didn’t we take a cooking class? Like that would even have helped! What a stupid thought!”
“This will be great!” Britney was all bubbles. “With a little practice, we could even sell it at the farmer’s market! Have a cute little sign. Oh! A little cartoon peanut!”
And there she went- fantasizing about something no one else could even come close to imagining.
“You know- in my day- we never would have had to even THINK about a peanut butter shortage.” Jared’s unwelcome rant began. “Things are too crazy these days. I blame the government. You know you can get the real truth on Facebook and the TRUTH is-“
“Dude- there’s no ‘your day’. We’re all the same age.” Frank cut him off without even looking up from his phone.
“Can’t we just make a decision? We really should have made it already. We’re just standing here like an idiot in the peanut butter aisle. Everyone is staring at us!” Barbara blubbered.
“Just do a vote.” Frank said.
“Fine.” Barbara pouted. “All for having a panic attack in the middle of the peanut butter aisle- raise your hand.” Only Barbara’s hand shot up- which made her pout harder.
“All for making an angry Facebook post about how terrible grocery stores are these days?” Jared was so busy plotting his post that he didn’t vote for his own suggestion- resulting in a whopping zero votes.
“All for starting our own farm with a cow, 6 chickens and an apple orchard?” Britney had gotten a bit distracted, evidently.
“What about the peanut butter?” Jared huffed- still irritated that his suggestion had been rejected.
“Oh yeah.” She giggled. “And peanut butter.” But nobody but Britney wanted to begin the farming life today.
“This isn’t working!” Barbara was crying now.
Frank sighed. “All for going back home, eating grilled cheese, and seeing if they get some peanut butter in tomorrow?”
Everyone looked around, nodded and raised their hands. It wasn’t the best- but it would do.
Barbara pressed a button on the screen, initiating the grocery store exit.
“Whew.” She exhaled, temporarily stress-free, “Another day, another crisis averted.”
“Maybe it’s like… a sign?” Sarah said. Maybe it was. But I didn’t really believe in signs like Sarah did. “It’s just a wrong turn.” Blake sighed, rolling their eyes. Apparently- they weren’t on board with the signs thing either.
“It’s not just the wrong turn though. There hasn’t been service this entire trip. There was that weird radio station playing an hour long segment from the 1970s. I swear- next thing you know, we’ll be on one of those ‘they never found them or their car’ unsolved mysteries episodes.”
Those didn’t really sound like signs, but maybe Sarah had a point. This trip really sucked so far. It was supposed to be something special. I had never been on a friends trip before- hell, not even a family trip. I don’t think I’d ever ventured more than thirty minutes outside of our tiny little town. Suddenly, I was wondering if Sarah was right.
“What…what episodes exactly?” my voice shook.
“You haven’t seen them?! They have like a town that someone is driving through, and then their car breaks down, and they call their parents and describe something that isn’t there but it was a long time ago, and then they call them again but the message is all static-y and then poof they’re gone. Like they went through a time warp.”
“Oh come on.” Blake was rolling their eyes so hard they might fall out. “You’re just scaring her with that load of gibberish.”
“It’s true!” Sarah was kind of irritating when she got defensive.
And then the car shuttered to a stop.
Blake made eye contact with me as best they could in the fading light. “Stay calm. This isn’t what it seems like.”
Blake had already hopped out of the driver’s seat and popped the hood open.
“See anything?” Sarah called.
“Nah.” Blake slammed the hood- either the problem beyond their knowledge or the supernatural truly had come for us.
They looked around. “I don’t see any businesses up ahead but I think we passed a restaurant a little bit back.”
Sarah’s face went white. “That’s exactly the story I saw Blake. You can’t go back there.”
“Well, even if we are in a time warp,” there went those eyes, “we can’t just sit here. Maybe the restaurant knows how to unwarp us.” They wiggled their eyebrows and their hands. They never took Sarah seriously.
Sarah looked at me, pleading. My anxiety was through the roof, but I gave a half-hearted shrug. “It’s just a tv show, Sarah.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. With help.” Blake took off in the direction we had just driven from. There wasn’t any arguing with Blake. Sarah and I watched in silence until they disappeared into the darkness.
“I have to be honest.” Sarah whispered.
“About what?” A million things ran through my mind.
“I had a bad feeling about this trip before we started. But I was worried if I didn’t go, you two would still go. I thought if I was here- I could help. But I guess I’m just useless.”
“You’re not useless.”
“You’re right. I’m great at scaring the shit out of you.” Sarah put her head in her hands.
“I’m glad you’re here. I mean- I’m not glad we’re in this situation or in a time warp or whatever but… well… you know…” I wasn’t particularly eloquent.
“I know.” Sarah let me and my awkwardness off the hook.
The night was long and cold and mostly sleepless. But exhaustion slipped in every once in a while and one of us would doze off for a moment only to be startled by a sudden noise or beginnings of a nightmare.
Just as dawn was breaking, a long, loud horn jostled both of us wide eyed.
Confident as ever, Blake was sitting shotgun in a tow truck.
“Sorry it took me so long!” They shouted as they bounded out. “I had to journey through a time warp.”