👁️👄👁️☕

[Applesintime]

That didn't make sense. You think hard about what you wanna order, so hard you know specifically what you want to get and they you like, conveniently forget that hey, a box of donuts is twelve and not eleven? But then again, her getting it wrong on purpose also didn't make sense, so meh. Whatever, he'd forget this all in like, twenty minutes and his energy would be concentrated on juggling like, twenty different orders and customers and all that jazz. Glancing at the register's clock, Alex discovered it had been like, ten minutes since he had started his shift. Maybe this day would go by a lot quicker than he thought, then he could head home, heat up some dinner or whatever, check up with his forums and discussions and such, let Daisy out for a little bit, and then settle down. Homework could wait.

"Alright, one more glaze, and cash... Alright, that'll be $12.07." Dawn put some money on the counter, and he picked it up, squinting at it for a moment. Now, he wouldn't expect anyone, let alone someone from his school, to try and pay for Dunkin' with fake bills, but apparently it happened enough that the manager said you had to check the bills for all the seals and logos and whatever that said that yep, it was a genuine bill. Now, nobody actually cared about that so they just kinda, like, held it up to the light and made it look like they were checking it, then it went into the register just like every other bill, because really, if you had fake money would you spend it on Dunkin' or would you go buy expensive stuff with it? Actually, there probably were some people and-

"Hey, this is, uh, this is $18, so, uh-" He was about to speak up when Dawn said that it was a tip. Poeple tipping the people who just took your order wasn't like, a common thing but right. Math time. So there were four people in, because this was a small location; him, Anne, Warren and the manager. Normally stoner guy would be in this shift, but he'd called sick and so that was why Alex was working the till. Tips always got like, split between the people who were in, so $5.93 divided by 4 was like... $1.49, give or take a cent or so. So yeah, it wasn't like that time that guy tipped $50 and he got an extra ten dollars, but 1.49 is 1.49.

"Oh, r-right, uh thanks." He put the order through, snatched up the receipt and pushed it through the hole in the plastic screen. "Alright, your number's on the receipt. Just wait for the screen to flash it and then your order'll be ready. Have a good day!" His well wishes sounded a little more genuine, but that's because he had been tipped.

[DerArknight]

When he took the money and gave out the receipt, Alex's voice sounded a little bit more lively than the business-voice he had spoken in until now. Dawn took this as a sign of success.

"Thanks. I am looking forward to it." Receipt in hand, she turned around and entered the pretty empty waiting area.

Overall, the conversation appeared to have been smoothly. If she ever saw Alex again, she would have some groundwork to build upon. And if not, then she at least had gotten a nice talk and some donuts out of it. Plus whatever the visit to the cinema would bring her.

However, arriving at the waiting area brought another person back into her conscience: Amos.

Now that she thought about it, why wasn't Amos with the chess club today? Maybe she should try to talk with him? But with his order being processed before her, the interaction could be cut short any moment. Interrupted conversations always left a bitter taste in her mouth, so maybe she should just let it go? Especially since she lacked the time to plan the meeting like she had done with Alex.

Unsure how to proceed, she stood still in the middle of the room, unaware of how awkward this might look to anyone watching her.

[Jilly]

Amos was #144. That was a pretty cool number. He always wondered how businesses counted their customers, like was he the 44th order of the day or the 144th order? Probably not that last bit considering this was a weekday, but you never knew, though for all he knew it could've just been because Amos seemed like a 144 kinda guy.

144...

He flipped the receipt over on the back. He could get $5 off on the next order if he took a survey. $5 for five minutes of his time. Did people ever actually do those things?

Amos looked back up at the order counter. Dawn finished her order and joined him off to the side. Hopefully he wouldn't have to wait too so-

His eyes went wide as he glanced away from Dawn as fast as he could.

The chess club thing was today.

Oops.

Amos crossed his arms, one hand now locked into a death grip on the receipt. What was he supposed to do? He had to say something right? Dawn knew. Of course she knew. What mattered was if she was gonna tell Ethan if it came up. Was it better to admit guilt to someone if the grapevine was gonna be involved or just keep pretending he didn't know who she was and hope it doesn't go anywhere after today?

Amos cleared his throat and spoke up, his head hanging away because it was already pretty low by default. "Hey, uhm... Ethan and the others don't gotta know I was here. Just... if it ever comes up. Please don't."

[Applesintime]

Soon, Alex forgot about the Irish kid and Dawn; he could see them talking to each other, and he wondered if hey, maybe they put each other up to this. Some kinda challenge to like, see who could make the dumbest order to the cashier. In that case, Irish kid probably won, because like, telling your cashier to just pick your donuts was kinda stupid. Of course, it was soon forgotten in the rush, because the start of 3 pm was like, prime hour. Thankfully, most of the orders weren't like, too bda, it was mostly just stuff like coffee and a box of donuts and sometimes muffins. If Alex had been off duty, he would have been right along them. Because a 30% discount was pretty good, and the smell of cooking donuts was making him hungry.

Sometimes, when he was on break, if he was lucky and the manager wasn't watching he'd make a donut for himself and sit in the back room eating it. It probably like, infringed on profit margins or something like that but if Dunkin' was in danger of going under cause some kid ate a donut without paying for it, then they were gonna go under anyway. Man, he hoped they didn't go under. He could always get himself a new job or something, because there were a bunch of fast food outlets around here, but Dunkin' had good donuts and coffee, and if they suddenly went away he'd miss them.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of overworked office workers and students who wanted a coffee and some donuts before they went home or went to hang out with their friends, the display flashed #144, coinciding with a box of 12 jelly donuts arriving for Amos.

[DerArknight]

Dawn's inner considerations were interrupted by a shy but soothing voice spotting an Upper Midwestern accent.

"Hey, uhm..."

She turned in said direction to realize that Amos had started a conversation before she could. Instantly, she answered with a typical greeting. "Oh, hello Amos." But his next words confused her.

"Ethan and the others don't gotta know I was here. Just... if it ever comes up. Please don't."

Since when is going to Dunkin Donut's a controversial thing to do? She wondered. Had they been cancelled on Twitter or something? She didn't care about such things and therefore was not up-to-date, but maybe Amos feared his reputation. Or maybe he was claiming to be on some sort of diet, so him being in a fast-food-store would get him exposed for having a moment of weakness? Or maybe he was here to meet someone and didn't want his friends to find out? The last one caused a light bulb to go on in Dawn's head.

That's it! He is about to go on a date.

This realization made her giggle. It explained why Amos looked so sheepish. He was nervous about the thing. He probably came way too early and now wanted to pass some time. However, it also meant that she couldn't talk with him for too long. After all, when his date arrived and saw him with another girl, it could lead to all kinds of misunderstandings.

"Sure thing." She answered his request. "No one will know a thing from me." She finished by giving him a thumbs-up. "Good luck!"

[Jilly]

Amos looked and saw Dawn flashing him a thumbs up and a saying good luck wish, which... what? Good luck with what? He crumpled the receipt harder trying to think of what to say, which didn't matter anyway since the big ol' #144 flashed on the screen as an escape route.

He ended up just kinda nodding his head at her before he stepped forward and snatched the box away, clutching it in his arms. Buddy was probably done now and Amos didn't really feel like talking with Dawn more, so time to leave.

Amos looked in the box as he moseyed away from the stall. Inside, there were a few jelly filled, a few with rainbow sprinkles, a few glazed, and one that looked like it was powdered. Maybe he'd wolf that one down before Buddy could.

((Amos Flanigan continued elsewhere))

[Applesintime]

Things continued as normal. Customers made their orders, some occasionally got mad at him because of how their orders came out, and he just kinda vibed with it because like, if you're a cashier you just have to take whatever stupid stuff the customer throws at you, and if he got mad he'd just get fired or something like that. And yeah, getting fried because you got mad at a customer didn't look great on a CV. Besides, he reminded himself that every time he got a customer out of the way, got them their coffee or donuts or whatever they wanted, then that's a few minutes shaved off the clock.

Soon, Dawn's order arrived, and her number flashed on the screen.

[DerArknight]

It didn't take long after Amos left that Dawn saw her own number coming up. It made sense. After all, she had ordered directly after Amos did.

By now, the Dunkin Donuts was filling with more and more people. For that reason, Dawn decided against another talk. She would just take the donuts plus cappucino and leave. Dawn made her way to the counter, where Alex had alreaedy placed her food. Out of habit, she opened the box to check if everything was alright.

What greeted her were several rows of jelly donuts. No powdered. No butternuts. No rainbow sprinkles. And not a single glazed.

This took her aback a bit. While she had made the specific order partways to get Alex's attention, it was also true that she preferred several kinds of donuts over twelve identical. But then again, she didn't want to sound rude. So she would have to try and point out the mistake without coming across as complaining.

With a small harrumph, she turned to Alex while presenting him the inside of the box. "Excuse me, but this is not what I ordered."

[Applesintime]

Alex had just finished dinging up some jock looking guy for like, $35 worth of donuts when Dawn came back up and told him that her order was wrong. Instantly, he realised the issue: the guys at the back had mixed up the first two orders, so Amos must be jetting off right now with Dawn's order, none the wiser. This happened - it was rare, but sometimes the guys at the back got deluged with orders, which made this even more embarrassing because they got the two orders - the first two orders of the school peak mixed up. Normally, Alex wouldn't have cared about this, because he'd be the one making the donuts and he always double-checked to make sure that the donuts were actually the right ones so they didn't get sued because they gave a customer something they were allergic to.

"Oh. Uh, sorry, that's on the guys at the back. Must have mixed up your order with someone else's. I'll just key in the order again." As he spoke, he tapped away at the machine. Put Dawn's order back in; Two jelly, one powdered, three butternuts, four rain sprinks and two glazed, plus a cappuccino. The order was marked as a reorder, which meant that it would have priority, because whoever the CEO was, he or she didn't like customers complaining about their orders being wrong and then having to wait a while to get their correct order.

"Just, uh, put the box down and we'll send it back, dispose of the donuts." Company policy was to get rid of any donuts from a wrong order. In reality, this almost never happened. Twelve donuts meant that they could split it three ways, and he could come home with four jelly donuts. Mary didn't like them, so that left a couple for him, and one for mom and dad. The hidden perks of working at a place where the food was fast and people sometimes got the wrong order and sent it back. There was some dude who worked at a McDonalds on his forums and he always bragged about how on his lunch he would sometimes make a burger or fries or whatever they had for his break, but Alex didn't think it was true.

[DerArknight]

Dispose of the donuts? What a waste!

This prospect sounded awful to Dawn. She wasn't that big on environmental activism, but throwing away twelve completely fine donuts would be just pointless. She would not stand for that.

"You know what? I changed my mind." She proclaimed. "Twelve jellies doesn't sound so bad. And they cost the same as what I ordered, right? Then let's just pretend this didn't happen." With this words and a smile, she scopped up the box and the cappucino. "Have a nice day, Alex."

And with that, Dawn made her exit. She preferred to eat on a bank inside the mall, where she could do more people-watching. It was still some time before the time when the cinema started their screenings, so she could take it slow.

((Dawn Montogomery continued in Movienight in Salem))

[Applesintime]

Well, that was weird. He was a little miffed that she had decided she was fine with the donuts because he was really hungry and they had been calling his name, but hey, at least he didn't have to send them back and get Dawn a fresh order. The way she had spoken was kind of annoying, but you got used to it after a while. It was like, that one time some minor politician had shown up to the Dunkin' - they were a state representative or something, Boston City Council, something that they seemed to think gave them authority. The manager had told them never to come back, even if they were some fancy suit, which was one of the few things Alex actually respected him for.

His stomach rumbled.

Maybe he would pick up food after his shift.

((Alex Avanesian continued in Skipping Leg Day))