"Well, we can go to the grocery store on my next day off and get cupcake stuff. I think there's usually recipes on boxes of cake mix."

Happy little bounces.

"Awww you're so cute!" Kiss.

Bouncy kisses!!!

He will tuck them in for the night when sleepy and kiss her goodnight and sleep with his arm over her.

So much cozier than sleeping in a cave!

In the morning, the first thing she says is, "How do I know what time it is?"

"You look at a clock. Like, I have one over there." He points at a clock. It says it's 7:30. "I think I would have an especially good day at work if you sucked my dick first."

"Okay!"

She does that, and snuggles him, and then gets her apron and her nametag and makes her way to her Job, where at the earliest opportunity she will ask how much money is in her paycheck.

It's nine dollars and fifty cents an hour!

Neat! If she understands the situation correctly, she will have five hundred dollars within a week!

"Actually a lot of that goes to taxes. We automatically take those out of your paycheck, which you could consider a favor since it makes it less likely you'll surprisingly owe thousands of dollars on tax day, or you could consider it an inconvenience because it means you have less money on hand in the short term, but we do it whether you want us to or not. And then there's the apron money but that's less than taxes."

"Well, accounting for taxes, how much is it?"

He gives her a number that makes sense in light of Fractious States tax law.

This will get her to five hundred dollars rather slower than the other way. Perhaps she should look into other neurologists to see if they want less money.

"I'm kind of alarmed to discover that we have hired a deli counter girl who needs a neurologist," says her boss, but he sends her off to work.

"It's because I want to understand how I learned English spontaneously the other day!" she explains, and she goes cheerfully to the deli counter to do her job.

Her job involves a lot of meat and cheese and weighing things and packaging things! Some people express attraction to her or spontaneously mope at her about their various personal drama:

- "My son never calls me and it would be better for my self-image if that were genuinely completely baffling but I actually think it might be because I was a terrible mother to him and don't feel capable of change."
- "I'm getting married next week! At the time of the proposal I thought of it as settling but I've gotten to like her more since then."
- "Wow, I really want to see your breasts. You should probably not take that as much of a compliment, it's true of nearly every woman I see."
- "I don't know the difference between provolone and meunster and I'm worried this betrays some fundamental lack of discernment in me."
- "I'm really overwhelmed and upset that you're out of the kind of roast beef I like! I was relying on that roast beef for my day to go as planned and now it's not and I'm maybe going to cry!"
- "You're not Kelly. I have a parasocial relationship with Kelly because I restock the employee fridge with stuff from here every day and I resent that you're not her."
- "Your nametag says Bird! That's an unusual name and makes me wistful about having been named something more interesting than Lisa."
- "Your hair is beautiful. If I find any of it in my turkey I will sue this store."

She expresses sympathy to people who are having a hard time and happiness to people who are having a good time and also has some other responses.

"Don't worry, I don't know the difference either!"

"I picked my name myself! I like birds because they don't live in caves or eat brains!"

"I am reasonably sure there is none of my hair in your turkey! I like having hair. It's pretty and nice to touch."

Everyone finds this basically unremarkable as a way for her to behave, though Kelly does offer Bird samples of provolone and meunster so she can experience the distinction.

This is a very interesting distinction and deserving of focused attention!

"The first time I tasted cheese," she muses once the ritual is complete, "I tried to eat the entire rest of the wheel of cheese because it tasted so fascinating. That turned out to be a bad idea. I ate too much cheese and made myself sick."

"One time I did that with ice cream when my parents left me alone in the house long enough that I went shopping," Kelly nods.

"What is it like to have parents?"

"I like it okay but sometimes my dad gets on my back about not giving him grandkids."

"Oh! Grandchildren! I hadn't thought about those! That must be interesting. I don't think I want kids myself. Making an entire person seems like a lot of responsibility."

"I just didn't want to be pregnant. It sounds really unpleasant. And I don't have a husband anyhow."