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L. Burke



A Very Bad Day

DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are
used without permission for entertainment purposes only.


Scott Summers knew it was going to be a very bad day.  Any day that started
out with a fight with his wife and then walking out to find a flat on his
car was going to be a bad day.  The fight was over something he really
didn't know what.  Jean was up early, he should have known to get out of
dodge right then.  Jean was not a morning person to say the least and Scott
tended to avoid talking to her until she had managed to absorb her second
cup of coffee.  Well today she had to be some where early to do an errand
for her mother, so she was up before he was, and to make matters worse they
were out of coffee.  To say the least his most times very pleasant wife, was
not very pleasant this morning.
After a few rounds of snipping from Jean, Scott had tried to walk up to the
house to borrow some coffee from the mansion and had found out that Hank had
used the last of theirs in some strange experiment.  Nathan was on a
rampage, and for once Domino and he had found something to bond over. 
Apparently Nathan took after Jean and that regard; he wasn't a morning
person either.  Nate had just finished chewing up X-Force about their latest
training exercise, snipped a few rounds at Domino, and that's of course when
Scott had walked in.  Nate had turned his undivided attention to him while
Domino and X-Force had tip toed out the door.  Scott had decided right then
to make a quick trip to the 24-hour grocery store, before someone died. 
That's when he had found the flat.  Nope this was not going to be a good
day.
He had ended up taking Logan's jeep to the store.  "Bertha" as Logan called
her was an old World War II army jeep.  Logan had owned her for years and
was the only person she really liked and could really drive her well.  Her
transmission stuck, she stalled, and Scott decided hated him personally.  On
his way there was of course and accident so a ten-minute drive had taken
closer to an hour.  The part that had really irritated him that it took so
long not because someone was badly hurt but the two idiots, neither had
stopped at their respective stop signs had left their cars in the middle of
the road.  All while they shouted cursed and accused each other that the
accident was someone else's fault.  When he had finally got past them, had
had fought down the urge to give them both the finger.  Right then he had
regretted the fact that Charles had raised him better than that.
At least there had been coffee at the grocery store.  He was finally
starting to think that things were starting to go his way, when he had
gotten behind the old person.  She had gotten in front of him in the check
out lane. One of only two lanes open at the time, there was a long line in
the other lane.  It was spouse to be the twenty items or less lane, she had
at least double that.  She only had about a million coupons, fought about
the price of every other item, made the clerk rebag all her frozen items,
and starting counting out the last ten dollars of her order out of pennies. 
The clerk was getting frazzled, Scott was getting frazzled, and the old
woman continued to count her pennies and complain about today's young
people.
While he was still waiting for the old woman to finish counting her pennies,
that's when the old man in back of him had started banging Scott with his
cart.  About the fifth time the old man had hit him, Scott had turned around
and glared at him because he was starting to leave bruises.  Scott had
simply glared at him and said, "Do you mind?"  The old man responded by
hitting him with his cart again.  Scott set his jaw.
After ten minutes of watching the old lady count her pennies, all the while
the old man behind him continued to hit him with his cart, Scott was
beginning to believe that both Charles and Magneto were wrong.  Both there
ideologies were based on the principle there was something noble about
mutant and or slash human kind.  Scott was deciding that there was
absolutely nothing noble about human kind at all and was wondering how
quickly the invading aliens could move in.
The old lady had counted her last penny and the clerk was giving her, her
slip, when the old man behind him just knocked Scott out of the way and
starting putting his stuff up on the register.  Scott just stood there with
his mouth open, "Excuse me Sir, you may not have noticed I was in line in
front of you first."  The old man had turned around glared at Scott and then
told Scott where he could go.  Scott just stood there in open mouth shock as
the old man ranted about how he was a World War II veteran and he didn't
deserve the shabby treatment and what was wrong with young people today.
"Excuse me sir," the clerk interrupted giving Scott a very sympathetic
glance, "but the tall gentleman with the red glasses was in front of you in
line and I'm going to ring him out first."  The old man started screaming at
the clerk at the top of his lungs demanding to talk to the manager.  Scott
had taken a deep breath, turned around and just ripped in to the old man. 
Scott had started by saying that BOTH his grandfather and his father were
war veterans, one of his friends was a World War II veteran and NONE of them
acted like this big of a jerk.  Scott had continued by asking the old man
what was wrong with him was he going senile?  Any idiot knew that they had
to wait their turn in line, and Scott knew some teenagers that were better
behaved than he was.  The old man had responded by shouting for security at
the top of his lungs.  The clerk quickly grabbed Scott's coffee and rang it
up as the manager headed up to them to see what was going on.  Scott was
very grateful that the clerk, and two teenagers in back of them had backed
Scott's story up or Scott might having to explain the whole incident to a
cop.  Scott had given the clerk a ten-dollar bill, got his change, and got
out of that store.
When he stepped outside it of course started pouring.  It took him a
half-hour to get Logan's jeep started.  By the time Scott made it back to
the mansion, he was fighting off the migraine headache of a lifetime.  When
he had got home he found out some idiot had sent them about three hundred
pages of gibberish on the school fax.  Scott had cleared the memory, and put
paper back in the fax, the idiot had sent it again.  It had taken him and
Logan an hour to track the person down to a local business, and after Logan
had done a little bit of threatening the person responsible had promised to
make sure it didn't happen again.  Scott was just rubbing his head when Nate
had come in for round two.  Surprisingly Logan was the one who jumped
between Nate and him, told Nate to go take it up with Charles, because he
and Scott were going out to lunch.  If Nate did want to take it up with
Chuck, Nate could stuff it and Logan had a few suggestions on where he could
too, told Scott to get his coat because they were out of here.
Logan and he were half way out of the county when Scott muttered "Thanks."
in Logan's direction.  Logan just gave him a bemused look.
"I figured I better get you out of there, or someone was going to die.  I
fixed you flat, I figured with the mood that Jeannie woke up to this morning
you might need a good get away car.  If your day is going anything like mine
you're going to need it.  My advice would be avoid Chuck and Storm as much
as possible today.  I think everyone but us woke up with a hair up their
crawl."
Scott rubbed his head not even wanting to think about when his wife got
home.  "Do you think we could make it across the Canadian boarder in two
days?"
Logan just laughed "I'm game if you are.  It is sad when I thinking how much
quieter Normandy was when we were invading, than the mansion is today.  Less
snipping."
Scott just flinched at the mention of World War II, "Please don't remind me
you were in the war today.  I told my first old person off, and I am
starting to feel guilty about it.  He was a veteran to, if my grandfather or
Charles finds out about it I'm sure I'll hear about it."
Logan just gave him another bemused look, "Welcome to the dark side Cyke.  I
think you would get a few less of your headaches if you told a few more
people off more often.  Start with Nate and let me be there."
Scott just gave him a look and rubbed his head again. "I tell you off all
the time and it doesn't seem to help."
Logan just shrugged, "You give me an authority figure to irritate and I give
you and outlet for stress.  It works for us most days, but sometimes it just
isn't enough.  That's why I go in to the danger room and kill things, and
you get margarine's.  I think by the end of the day I'm going to be setting
that danger room record and you will be down in sick bay visiting McCoy. 
You know Cyke, there is nothing wrong with letting it slip once in a while;
no one is going to think less of you if you lose your temper.  You gotta let
it out in this business or you'll just snap someday.  Trust me on this one,
burying it just isn't healthy.  Besides if I managed to give you a
hemorrhage Jeannie will kill me.  Figured we could go to this little place I
know, the foods not bad there."
They both drove the rest of the way in silence not saying anything.  When
they finally reached the place that Logan wanted to have lunch they found
the place surrounded by fire trucks.  Logan cursed and stated he was going
for that record.  Scott just wasn't surprised at all it had been after all a
very bad day.


 

Other Stories By L. Burke

 


Please Get Well For Christmas

There's No Place Like Home

Beneath the Floor Boards

We Will Always Have the Stars

Elves, Weirdoes and Ten More Degrees

What Could Have Been

The Suggestion Box

Friday Nights, Guy Talk, Stalkers and Other Strange Things

New Begginings and Second Chances

A Very Bad Day


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