Advent Calendar - 19th December 2008

Shopping on Earth
by Leesa Perrie

Set Season 4, post Missing, pre-Midway

Thank you to Jayne Perry for the beta-reading.

Rodney hated Christmas shopping.  Hated the bright lights, the noise, the claustrophobic crush of so many people in one place.  He wasn’t really used to crowds anymore, Pegasus not providing that many crowd situations, and he’d forgotten just how annoying and downright disorientating it could be.

He felt like a fish being pulled by a tide; a tide made up of frantic shoppers that had already made him miss one shop, forcing him to struggle back against the flow.  Elbows were useful he discovered, and ignored the curses sent his way as he fought his way back to Total Childhood.

It was worse in there, of course.  Children running, crying, screaming, grabbing toys, having tamper tantrums when told they couldn’t have them, and generally getting under foot.  Then there were the parents, mothers mainly, harried, short on patience, trying to keep their little brats under some sort of control and failing badly as far as he could discern.  Pandemonium, and a true Christmas nightmare if ever there was one.

But this was for Teyla and for his niece, so he put up with the chaos; the pushing, the shoving, the racket and the migraine inducing stress, to find the correct toys and the correct baby paraphernalia that Jeannie had chosen and ordered him, in no uncertain terms, what he was to get.  But then, what did he know about babies and kids? Except that they were noisy, irritating and generally dirty and full of germs.

What he went through for family and friends - they’d better damn well appreciate his efforts, that was all.

Then finally, finally, he managed to find and purchase the items on his list, and then it was back out into the tumult of the mall’s main thoroughfare, before reaching the blessedly sweet, oh so sweet, air of the parking lot. 

Well, okay, it was a city and so the air was no doubt polluted, but after the horrors of the mall, it seemed sweet to him.

So, presents for two people down – which left several to go.

He sighed, putting the carrier bags into his rental car.  He’d have to brave the bedlam of the mall again tomorrow, but at least he didn’t have to go back to the hell that was Total Childhood.

At least, not until next year. 

He shuddered.

Maybe the Wraith would have killed him by then.

The End

A/N: Thanks for my hubby for the suggestion of ‘Total Child’ for the shop’s name.  I added ‘hood’ onto it, but the idea was all his.

Btw, did you know that in London there is a maternity company called Push Maternity Wear? It made me giggle when I saw that while researching potential shop names!!


On to 20th December


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