Survival Of The Fittest

If there was one thing Alex Avanesian hated, more than the guys who came on his favourite forum to talk about coronavirus conspiracy stuff only to get banned in five seconds, more than math - it wasn't that he was bad at it, it was just dull. It was important, but it still sucked to have to do it. It wasn't like shop class, where he could just tune out the world, focus on whatever he was cutting or sanding or filing today, and relax. It was crunching numbers, and you'd expect someone with grades like him to be invested in it, but it was just something that he did. Mrs. Donahue was kinda nice to him, but she was also like, kinda rude and didn't care much about the people who didn't have good grades.

Where was he?

Ah, yes. If there was one thing he hated, more than conspiracy coronavirus guys, more than math, it was having to work at the counter, take orders and stuff, during peak hours.

((Alex Avanesian: Pregame Start))

He would be fine if it wasn't peak hours, because if it was something like eleven AM or some time, anything other than this one. But it was four PM on a week day, and do you know what that means? All the kids from John Endecott and the teaching staff would be heading straight to the mall to meet up with their friends and talk about boys and sports and girls or whatever they talked about, and they'd all want Dunkin's. They'd want the donuts, they'd want some kind of obscure coffee that they made four years ago as part of a promotion for like, Marvel or something and they wouldn't have any of that stuff in stock, but he'd have to tell Anne or Warren or something to go check because 'the customer was always right' and there wouldn't be any so he'd have to offer a substitute and they'd get annoyed at him and nobody would leave happy. Normally, he wouldn't be doing this, but someone had called in sick, and someone else volunteered him for front of house.

There was a reason he liked working in the back, heating up the donuts and making the coffee and stuff. Some of the other people were people people, happy to chatter away with the customer and get them their coffee and ask them how their kids were. Alex wasn't a people person. Most of his social interaction consisted of the SOTF club or the forums he spent his time on, and a small amount of it was actually in the real world. It didn't hurt to be like, practising his skills and stuff so he could talk to people outside of his friends but it sucked to have to be in some fake customer/worker interactions. Especially if it was some Karen who like, got mad at him because her soy latte was like, 99 degrees instead of 98, getting mad at the worker who took your order was kinda just shooting the messenger. At least they had a good radio station, y'know? It wasn't really to Alex's taste, because the manager was a classical music buff, but it was music, and you wanted music in the kitchen and counter area because if he had to hear the mall's music for like, three hours straight he'd go nuts.

Standing around awkwardly at the Dunkin' counter, Alex adjusted his little hat and sighed, trying his best to look happy despite his fatigue, because he had been in school for like, seven or eight hours before this and he was here until like, six or seven? Then he could go home and like, get dinner or just pick up some takeout at one of the places here. He could already see the kids trickling in; some of them headed towards like, Burger King and Wendy's and all that stuff, and his stomach grumbled to remind him that hey, he hadn't eaten anything other than a snack bar before his shift started and he was hungry. It was all for minimum wage, but he didn't really know what he was saving it for. Dad didn't make him pay rent, and he wasn't out buying clothes all day like most kids. His Canon hoodie was, like - wasn't necessarily a good look, what with everything and all that happened with him, but the dude knew how to make good hoodies. Sometimes, he thought about trying to like, bleach the name off the hoodie but most of the time he just couldn't really care enough. because, like -

Alex shook himself awake from his daydreaming. Now wasn't the time for that. Someone would come over eventually, and he had to like give a good impression so his manager didn't get annoyed at him or something. He had never seen it happen but the manager had a little reputation for kinda being short-tempered. One dude apparently like, accidentally broke one of the donut making things and they nearly got into a fight. Alex didn't wanna be on the receiving end of that. So, putting on his best customer service face, stupid dopey smile, and ready to recite the mantra of customer service, which was the customer always being right, he kinda leaned himself against the counter, which still had the little plastic screen things from last year which sucked because anyone talking behind it is always kinda muffled, but at least they had no masks. Masks and glasses sucked.

"Hey, welcome to Dunkin', what can I get you today?" Murmuring to himself, he let out a little yawn as he waited for a customer. That was one of the things that sucked about working at the front, you know? It was just a lot of waiting, and when you weren't waiting, it was all inputting orders on the little order pad so it could get relayed to the guys in back, and then they make you the coffee, heat up your donuts, whatever you want, and then it gets shoved on a tray and delivered straight to you. The mall didn't like, have those panel things like McDonalds did where you put your order in the screen and then sat down and waited, so you just had to sit down and wait for the coffee machine to go brrr. It was like a machine, albeit a rusty one oiled with cigarettes and that one guy who always comes in stoned, drunk or both and just makes the best donuts and coffee. He hadn't shown up so maybe that was who had called in sick.

Lost in his thoughts for a moment longer, Alex pulled himself out of his head once again. He needed to stop daydreaming but alas, that was just kinda something he did. It was kinda annoying but sometimes, it's fun to just zone out entirely. Drown everything else out, maybe stick a podcast on, and just turn your brain off. But the mall wasn't the place to do that. Especially not when he was on shift, and there were customers that needed serving. So he focused on keeping his thoughts tethered, instead of letting them drift off in a tidal wave of boredom.

Looked like no one was in line. Awesome.

(( Amos Flanigan )) kinda sorta liked the mall, but he sure hated lines, let alone for half day old donuts. Plus he told Buddy this was just gonna be a quick stop-over, and Buddy definitely hated the mall. But Buddy also had to pick somethin' up for his pa's birthday, so if Amos was gonna be his ride anyway he was also gonna treat himself.

He liked the Dunkin' Donuts at the mall (yeah, yeah, he knew it was technically just "Dunkin'" now but they might as well add that hangin' G at this point if they were gonna bastardize it, ya know?). They were pretty nice here, maybe because they had to try and shuffle people out ASAP or something or other, who knew. He didn't like the manager though, but- oh, it was just that Alex fella. Huh.

Well. Donut time.

Amos greeted the fella at the counter with a smile and a bob of the ol' noggin as he entered the stall and wandered on in with his hands in his pockets, stooping over when he got closer to the dumb plastic fence thing as he waited to have his order taken.

And here came the first one. He knew him from school, he had seen him in the corridors a bunch of times, but they had never talked, whether because this dude thought 'oh hey, there's the weird guy who's interested in Survival of the Fittest, better not talk to him at all' or just because they didn't like, run in the same groups. His name was uh. Alex wasn't good at names, but his surname was something Irish. There sure were a lot of Irish-American people around Massachusetts, but that was probably because of the whole, like, famine and being colonised by the English. Dad always said that the Irish and the Armenians were similar, because, y'know, both of them got colonised by a foreign power - the Ottomans for the Armenians and the British for the Irish - there was a famine and genocide and all that bad stuff, and then they fought back against their oppressors and they had freedom and their own nation. He didn't really get his father's like, appetite for Armenian culture - like, Alex enjoyed it, because it was his heritage, and the food and music and language were good, but his father seemed to eat, breathe and sleep Armenian. Perhaps, Alex concluded, he didn't get it because he was born in California and not Yerevan.

Right. Uh. Irish dude. He was a lot taller than Alex and if he didn't, like, know the dude was in his year he'd've assumed that he was like, 25 or something because he looked a lot older than 17 or 18. He also looked like he was always about to keel over and die or something. On one hand, if he did so Alex would probably get to go home early, but on the other hand he'd have to fill out like a billion reports and he'd end up going home around the same time, so instead he was just gonna get this dude his cheap coffee and donuts, he wouldn't keel over and die, and then the next guy or girl or whatever would come up, he'd get them their cheap coffee and donuts, repeat for like, two or three hours. It was boring, but at least he wasn't here until close like the rest of his coworkers.

"Hey, welcome to Dunkin', what can I get you today?" Alex gave him the customer service smile, standing up a little straighter. First customer of the day, gotta make himself pretend to be cheerful before the boredom crushed him like something in one of those hydraulic press videos. He had said the magic words of customer service a hundred thousand times to a hundred thousand different people, it was like, he probably said it in his sleep or something. Did he dream about serving Dunkin' to people? He hoped not, because he could have dreams about anything, and having them about working at a donut and coffee chain would be like, a waste of sleep. A waste of dream. At least he'd probably be able to get into the routine really quick, and just kind of keep his mind focused so he didn't like, ramble in his mind while a line slowly grew full of angry customers.

There wasn't a line forming behind the guy, so it was good for now. At least he seemed pretty friendly, even if he was like, looking ten years older than he actually was as normal. That was probably, like, kinda rude but he always wondered how that happened. You had guys who looked like they were 12 and guys who looked like they were 22 and like, it was weird. Genes were weird. Because you like, just kinda smudged what your parents look like, combined them and then you got you. What you looked like, what you were.

But right now, he should be thinking about coffee, not genes.

Amos nodded his head and stepped closer to the order counter, looking down at Alex. He paused for a second or two before smiling and mumbling something out.

"Hi, uh, yeah. I just wanna get a box with a dozen. Your pick."

Amos turned the fingers of his left hand out of the pocket and spayed them in front, leaving the thumb hooked in as he waited for a response.

((Dawn Montogomery: Pregame start))

As far as Dawn could see, it was a good day for a donut.

Normally, she would be with Ethan right now. But Ethan and some other members of the Chess Club were currently training for an upcoming competition, so he had no time to accompany Dawn on her trip to the mall.

While the escalator handled her quick ascend to the upper floor, Dawn used the moment to take in the scenery. As far as she knew, the mall had been in dire need of a complete renovation since forever. But for Dawn, this negligence gave the place an unique atmosphere, making her almost feel nostalgic about a time where the mall had been new and state-of-the-art. A time she had never seen and could only speculate about. This mystery was another reason for her to visit the mall regularly.

But in the not-too-distant future, I might no longer be able to-

She interrupted her thought before it could reach the finish line. No hard topics today, she just wanted to enjoy some cheap food and see if the cinema showed something worth watching. Despite being not much of a movie-junkie, she found it important to be somewhat up-to-date with what her peers were doing. Movies were always a good topic that almost everyone had something to say about.

But before that, it was donut-time. Knowing the importance of a diverse diet, she prefered to circle through the different places on the food court instead of having a place she went to every time. And today it was Dunkin' Donuts's turn.

Entering the donut shop, she instantly spotted an opportunity: there was no line to speak of. Only one young man standing right in front of the counter. On closer inspection of the man's back, she recognized him as Amos Flanigan, a member of the chess club.

Out of a baseless worry about being roped into a match, Dawn had always tried to keep some distance from the chess club. But thanks to her best friend Ethan being in it, she at least knew enough about the club to recognize the names and faces. From what she heard, Amos seemed to be an okay guy.

On the other hand, the boy behind the counter had a much more questionable reputation.

Apparently, the guy named Alex was rumored to be a fan of these terrorist attacks called SOTF. Dawn failed to see how anyone apart from the people trying to catch the terrorists or relatives of the victims would be interested in such tragedies. But if she evaded him like many of her friends did, she would never find out.

However, right now was probably not a good day for conversation. After all, Alex was clearly working. But with no one behind her, a little bit of small-talk should be fine, she figured.

With this in mind, she made her way to the back of the one-person-line. Out of habit, she made sure to keep a two-meter-distance from Amos. The pandemic may be mostly over and she was vaccinated, but one could never be too careful.

Irish dude stepped up and mumbled something nearly incomprehensible. He'd worked at the front of the house enough to like, be able to understand what people said when they were mumbling but still, was it so hard to be able to like, open your mouth properly and not mumble and be able to actually have the guy on the other side of the counter be able to hear you without like, needing to be an inch away from your mouth? And then like, your pick? Your pick? You don't just like, go to a fancy Boston restaurant and say 'oh yeah lmao just get me whatever bro' to the waiter. Dunkin' wasn't a fancy restaurant, it was a hole in the wall in a rundown mall in Salem, but still, he can't exactly just give him a random box of twelve, there wasn't an option for that.

He could feel his blood pressure rising.

This was going to be a long three hours.

Nodding, Alex just inputted the numbers for a box of twelve jelly donuts. Everyone liked jelly donuts, and if this guy didn't want jelly donuts, it was his own fault for letting the underpaid cashier pick his donuts. Like, was it so hard to stare at the menu for like, three seconds and then decide that you want the jelly or the chocolate or plain or whatever? Anyway, the guys in the back would see that number and bake 12, and then they'd be shuffled up to the front and he would give them to Irish guy and that would be one customer out.

"Alright, that'll be... $9.99. Will you be paying with card or cash?" Someone else was joining the line, a girl by the looks of it. Hopefully she wanted something simple, a donut or coffee, not just 'your pick'. That was going to keep him up at night.

Amos watched Alex as he fumbled his hands around the kiosk, burning a hole through the screen and lookin' kinda miffed. Amos tilted his head. Did he say something strange? Maybe his pal was just constipated or something.

Alex mumbled something out about payment. Amos blinked a few times and shook his head back into reality. "Yeah, it's uhhhh," he mumbled and reached around for his wallet in one of the rear pockets. He glimpsed at the girl in line behind him, another one of his classmates. Her name was Dawn or something or other, but come to think this was probably the first time Amos ever saw her not attached at the hip to Ethan, though maybe he was wandering around somewhere.

...Hmm. Amos suddenly felt like he was forgetting something... Oh well, must not've been that important.

"Ope," Amos muttered to himself when he realized Alex was still waiting on him, glare and all. Amos quickly pulled out his wallet and got the debit card and showed it to Alex. When even was the last time he paid with a bill, come to think? Huh.

Amos waited for the reader to fire up with his total and then pushed the card into the chip reader.

He pushed it in a little further after nothing happened.

While Amos finished his payment, Dawn glanced behind her to confirm that there was no bigger line forming. Then she considered how she should approach small-talk with Alex.

At first, I need to wake him up from his working-routine. The best way to do that would be with a special order he doesn't expect. Then I have to lead him into a conversation slightly related to that order.

And that would be all. A short talk of maybe one minute or until someone behind her arrived. After all, letting other customers wait just to earn some friendship-points would be very selfish. All she wanted today was to leave an impression and sow the seeds for another conversation on another day. Maybe she would run into him at school and say something like "Oh, nice to see you again".

Her plans were surprisingly thorough. But as always, she forgot to consider if her current "target" actually wanted to get to know her. Reminding her of this would have been the job of the absent Ethan.

Amos had begun to fumble with the card reader. She mentally readied herself.

He was paying by card, which was in one way good, because, like, card was much easier to handle than money, and you normally didn't have to worry about people paying with fake bills or like, paying with a $50 so you have to spend a minute picking $40 in one dollar bills and cents out of the register and just holding up the queue even more so you gotta like, do everything a little quicker and it's just horrible. On the other hand, their card reader was like, 50 years old and it tended to fuck up with some of the newer cards. Normally you just had to turn it back on and off again and then it'd take the card no problem, but then sometimes it refused to and he had to call the manager over to authorise the purchase and it was a horrible time for everyone involved. Hopefully, that wouldn't happen.

Alex tapped at the register, turning on the card reader. Please don't break, please don't break, please don-

It broke.

Alex wasn't one for swearing. Dad had taught him that a true gentleman never swore, and he was always kind and protective of others, except he swore like a sailor so the message was kinda weird because at the slightest provocation, like banging his toe or the lawnmower refusing to start or something, he'd drop as many f-bombs as he wanted, often loudly, uncaring of who would hear him or how unprofessional it was. Right now, Alex envied that ability to just curse as loudly as he could, because of the stupid card reader machine. This is why he hated working at the till, because everything kept breaking.

"Hang on, uh... try it now." Tapping the buttons, he turned it off and on again. Please, please don't have it be broken. He prayed, not to any god in particular, but just to anyone in particular who might be willing to grant him a small boon of having the card reader work.

"Sorry, this, uh, this doesn't normally happen, you know?" Offering an apologetic smile to the Irish kid, Alex tapped at the register awkwardly, hoping that it worked this time.

Amos chuckled as he pulled the card out and waited for Alex to reset the reader. The two inevitabilities in life were death and machines breaking on you when you needed them, but that was just the kind of humor God liked.

Amos stopped himself from joking about how it must've been on the house. Jokes were good, but Alex didn't seem much like the joking type, or at least right now.

"It's all right." He smirked and glanced at Dawn before turning back to Alex fixing the machine. "I'm not going anywhere."

He shoved the card in again when prompted, this time all the way. He drummed on the sliver of counter space with his hand as he waited for the card to clear.

...Jeez, what was he forgetting?

Alex watched the machine with bated breath as the Irish kid stuck his card in again. And he let it out in a sigh of relief as it went through. It sucked whenever it did this - one day back in like, July the thing refused to take card no matter how many times they whacked it or reset it and so they had to stick up a sign on the wall saying the machine was broke and they only took cash and like, everyone got annoyed because they came with a card and didn't expect the machine to be broken. He wasn't working front of house that day, he was just in the back making coffee and heating up the donuts but from what he could tell, the poor girl working the register didn't have a nice day. And Alex always worried, always worried that the same thing would happen to him and he'd have to bear all the anger of the people who wanted their donuts and coffee but thankfully, it wasn't gonna be like that today.

"Alright, here we, uh, here we go. Your number's on the receipt, just-just wait for the monitor to flash it and then your donuts'll be there. Have a good day." His hand, already waiting for the receipt to pop up, snatched it and pushed it under the little hole in the plastic wall thing. Giving the Irish dude a smile - really, what was his name? Irish dude was a little impersonal but it didn't like, uh, he forgot what he was gonna say.

Anyway.

Hopefully this girl would just want something quick and simple. Some kinda like, coffee or a box of donuts or like, whatever they had on offer that week because like, it was really simple to input the offer because all you had to do was select the 'Weekly Offer' button on the register and it'd do all the calculations for you. He didn't actually know what was on weekly offer, probably those like, lemon filling donuts with the graham cracker crumbs and the icing sugar because they had got a lot more of those than they actually sold normally and like, they weren't allowed to take them home which sucked because Mom loved lemon stuff and it'd make her happy.

Amos flinched a bit as Alex shoved the receipt through the barrier, but he just calmly took it and filed it into his wallet along with his card.

Have a God day? Of course he could! "Thanks, you too."

Amos stepped out of line into the waiting area thing, shoved his hands back in his pockets, and looked and paced around a bit as he waited for his order.

And all of a sudden, Dawn stood in front of the counter.

There was no one behind her, giving her the leeway she had hoped for. With a smile, she began a short introduction. "Hi, I am Dawn. You may have seen me on the school corridors now and then."

Saying the name was important to leave an impression. However, this was just the first strike. In order to make a lasting impression, she came forward with the order she had prepared while waiting.

"I would like a dozen donuts. To be exact, I was thinking about two jelly, one powdered, three butternuts, four rainbow sprinkles and one glazed. Also a cappucino to go, please."

The amount of donuts she had named totalled eleven instead of twelve. This was another trick: Alex would have to specifically ask for the twelfth one, which would lenghten the conversation and result in a clearer memory when she approached him again in a few days. She felt no guilt over using psychological tricks like that. It was for a good cause, after all.

Away went Irish guy, and along came a girl, who for some reason, decided to introduce herself by her name, Dawn, and also mentioned that he might have seen her in school. Why was she introducing herself? OK, your name's Dawn, cool. Was she gonna give him her full story as well? He was like, probably being punished by some elder being for calling the Irish guy Irish guy. Oh, what's that, Alex, you don't know who the guy you served was called? Well, don't worry, the next girl's gonna give you her name, the name of her family, her full life story, where she lived and the numbers on the back of her card! It didn't matter, because he'd probably forget her name in like, ten minutes. He wasn't, like, good with names, it normally took him a couple of tries to actually get it committed down to memory, so if he had a bunch of names he needed to remember he'd write them down somewhere and read it before bed, so it'd stay in his subconscious or something. He got it online. It was actually a good tip, because he was definitely remembering names better. Anyway, he wasn't writing Dawn's name down anytime soon.

"Alright... Uh, welcome to Dunk-" Dawn cut him off, with one of those weirdly specific orders. Box of twelve, listing the ones she wanted specifically, plus a cappuccino. The two extremes, listing the type of donuts you wanted in your box specifically, and literally just letting the cashier pick whatever donuts you want. That was going to keep him up at night, because like, everyone normally had a favourite type of donut - like, if it was him, he'd've gotten plain or chocolate or something, so letting the cashier just pick your donuts was... weird? It didn't, like, actually make sense, but maybe the guy was just rushed or something.

"Two jelly, one powdered, three butternuts, four rain sprinks and one glazed..." Alex mumbled to himself, inputting the donuts into the machine, before, well, he realised. Like, Alex was good at math generally, but even like, the dullest person that Mrs. Donahue kept getting mad at would be able to understand that two plus one plus three plus four plus one makes eleven, not twelve. He'd take Irish guy and his lack of commitment to someone who apparently can't do basic math. At least one of the good things you learned, working retail, was how to keep the general irritance at how dumb people can be off your face. It especially helped when like, someone was saying stupid stuff in class and you wanted to tell them to shut up but then they'd just start picking on you. You just put on the customer service face and then your face is like, pretty much impenetrable. He forgot where he was going with this.

"Hey, uh, that's eleven, not twelve. You want me to add another powdered or glaze or what?" He gave Dawn a customer service smile. At least, there wasn't much of a line building up behind her - hey, there wasn't even a line. Suppose that most people would be going to one of the places downtown, not some mall that looked like it had been ripped straight from a 70s sitcom. Or maybe he was just, like, overthinking it and in 20 minutes he'd be praying for someone like Dawn because he was being deluged with all the office workers who wanted ten coffees for them and their friends. Gotta count your blessings, as Mom always says.

"Oh, my bad!" Dawn spoke with a surprised face. Then she laughed it off. "Looks like I was thinking too hard about what to order. Hehehe."

Now it was time for the ending. After all, talking too much about her (supposed) miscalculation would make her look bad, which was not the desired result. Odds were he was already thinking that, but that was fine as well. In that case, she had just lowered his expectations to positively surprise him in later encounters. Also she was getting hungry, and making an impression on Alex had ultimately been more of a side-quest. Dawn was still here to get some donuts and take a look at the cinema.

"Sorry for that. You can add one more glaze, please. Also I will pay with cash, since the reader doesn't seem to cooperate." A little humor went a long way, as far as she knew. While talking, she already took out her wallet and prepared what she guessed to be enough money, which she put on the counter for him to grab.

"You can keep the rest as a tip. As indemnification." She lied. Even without getting the order wrong, she would have given him a small tip anyway. Her parents gave her a nice allowance, so she could be generous now and then.