(lvi.)

Lorelei opened the refridgerator.

"You sure you don't want anything? Not even, like, an iced tea or anything?"

Midge shook her head.

Lorelei shrugged, pulled a can of iced tea out of the fridge, and slid the door shut. "Whatever, man. At least get something."
"Lor, this is illegal--"
"That's the point!"
"...huh? Wait, I'm still confused. Why is it good that we're breaking the law with a credit card that isn't ours when we already stole money from a bank?"

Lorelei pulled a bag of beef jerky out of its box on the shelf. "No, okay, see, it's not about the iced tea, or the beef jerky, or any of that. It's about the fact that the clerk is going to freak out on us, and call American Express, who, in turn, is going to call Pierpont. So there's no messy Chet finding out we're still alive. Understand?"

"No, actually, not at al--"
"Doesn't matter. C'mon. You sure you don't want anything?"

Midge sighed, heavily.

Lorelei put the can and the bag on the counter. She smiled at the clerk. The clerk stared, blankly, back at Lorelei.

"Can I help you?" He asked, in a dull tone.
"Uh... yeah, I'd like to buy these."
"Okay."
"Here," she said, pulling out Pierpont's credit card.
"Sorry, there's, uh, there's, like, a ten dollar minimum for all credit card, um, purchases."
"Shit."

Lorelei turned, grabbed a bag of pork rinds and two more bags of beef jerky, threw them on the counter, smiled, and politely asked, "is all this worth more than ten dollars?"

The clerk nodded. "Yup," he said, in a dull voice.

He picked up the bag of pork rinds, and passed them under the scanner. When it didn't do anything, he did it again.

He tried it four more times, before saying, "I don't think, um, i don't think it's, like, working."

Lorelei growled.

"Give me the damned bag," she demanded, as she took the pork rinds from him, scanned them, and threw them to the side. She scanned the other things, and then said, "okay. Can I pay now?"

He nodded. "Just slide the card through there," he said, pointing to the cash register, "since, like, the, um, it likes you more."

"Do you, like, want a receipt?"



[chapter lvii.]