Jaxon was jolted awake, instantly feeling like he needed his morning coffee more than usual. It could have been the regular “saving the world” type dreams he had that made him feel less rested, or maybe it was because he was already subconsciously annoyed by the sound of his girlfriend McKayleigh’s Macbook keyboard. She was incredibly aggressive on the thing, which caused more than a few fights between the two of them; a topic which Jaxon finally learned to quit providing unsolicited commentary on. He emerged from the bedroom, glancing over at the kitchen island, where McKayleigh was going back and forth between fussing with her portable ring light, and smashing at letters on the keyboard to tell her colleagues that she’ll turn video and audio on in a minute. “Good morning babe!” Jaxon said, leaning in to kiss her. “Not now Jaxon. Uh I mean good morning, but I have to get on this Zoom call.. like 5 minutes ago actually” McKayleigh snapped. Jaxon walked quickly to the other side of the kitchen, where he pulled the stainless steel carafe from the base of the coffee maker. He could tell by the light weight of it, things were not looking good… he grabbed the nearest mug from the cupboard above with his other hand, then started to pour. Sure enough, barely 1/3 cup of cold sludge.. Great. Just as he was about to go through the steps to make a new pot, he could hear McKayleigh’s muffled yell from the pantry – “WE. ARE. OUT. OF. WINE. ArrrrrGHH!”. Knowing the stress punctuated comment was definitely made for him to hear, Jaxon turned his head and yelled back; “Didn’t I just get like 6 bottles?”. As she emerged from the small room she coldly glared at him due to the accuracy of this question, while taking it as rhetorical and simply stating “I need MORRRRRRRE. How else am I supposed to get through these meetings without the creative juice flowing?”. Jaxon chose not to point out the fact it was 9:30AM on a Thursday; instead offering to quickly get dressed and make the trip to the liquor store. Whatever… the stress levels were already too high for him to relax, the calls themselves (which she did daily) were annoying, plus it would give him a chance to grab a coffee on the way. On his way out the door, McKayleigh yelled “Kisses! Make sure to get something for yourself!”. “Ok, see you in a bit babe.” Wow how generous, I can buy a bottle for myself with my own money… what a novel concept thought Jaxon as he rolled his eyes and entered the access door to the garage, hitting the large grey button on the wall. The aluminum garage door loudly lurched up, bathing his Dodge Ram 1500 Rebel Crew Cab in morning light. Jaxon smiled, once again satisfied with his choice of Hydro Blue pearl paint, as he opened the driver’s side door to grab the handle and swing his body up into the plush leather seat. Flipping open the center console, he grabbed his trusty custom stippled M&P .40 in the Blackhawk SERPA and slid the paddle between his 5.11 pants and belt on his right hand side. With “Caribou Coffee” selected from the GPS favorites, and an ETA of 4.5 minutes, this morning was finally looking up for Jaxon.

The south end of strip mall parking lot was normally bustling at this time of morning, with the Caribou Coffee drive thru line typically stretching up to a dozen idling pickup trucks. This morning it was suspiciously empty. Jaxon drove up, and piloted the mighty 1500 between the concrete guides to make his way up to the ordering window. Upon arriving, there was a small sign which read “CLOSED DO TO CORVID-19. God Bless.”, so much for that thought an annoyed Jaxon as he let out a sigh. Chirping the tires in frustration, he pulled out of the drive thru and sped to the other end of the parking lot where the liquor store was. If there was one thing you could count on, it was liquor stores being open. Jaxon pulled into a parking spot near the entrance, where a large neon Budweiser sign indeed read “OPEN”, and people were coming and going. Jaxon hit the off button on the truck, press-checked his M&P, exited and made his way up to the entrance. Given the choice between sliding automatic doors and a smaller manual side door, Jaxon excitedly reached into his pocket for his house keys, which shared a keyring with a new EDC tool he recently ordered but hadn’t had a chance to try out yet. In the age of viruses this new tool was for poking and pulling things in day to day life in order to minimize contact. Jaxon put his middle finger through the loop and extended the hook end of the tool out to the door handle and pulled back. The first attempt caused the tool to slip back off the handle. Not a big deal, second attempt… hmmm same thing. By the third attempt, the weight of the door pulling on his middle finger was starting to hurt. Jaxon winced and straightened his hand, causing the partially open door to swing closed – pulling the EDC tool and keys with it, sending them crashing to the ground. “Need some help sir?” a girl in her early 20s asked as she was waking up to the automatic doors. Annoyed at the situation which just unfolded, in addition to being called sir Jaxon replied “I’m good, thank you Ma’am.” as he grabbed the items off the ground then pulled open the door with his right hand. Once inside he took a second to collect himself, massaging the bridge of his nose and eyes in frustration with the same hand. Next, pulling the phone out of his pocket, he started up the notes app to double check the name of the wines McKayleigh drinks… oh right, that expensive California stuff. I don’t know why she can’t drink the $8 bottles… Something about “the sulphites” giving her headaches; sounded like a fancy excuse. I’m sure they have plenty of good grapes here in North Dakota, he thought to himself as he made his way over to the USA Wines aisle near the middle of the store.

Still on his phone only half paying attention while walking, Jaxon arrived at the aisle cutting the corner very close with a hard right turn.. almost tripping over a display that wasn’t there a few days ago. He stopped to see what it was, and couldn’t believe his eyes SHEEPDOG WHISKEY that was PEANUT BUTTER flavored! Unbelievable!! This morning really took a turn for the better for Jaxon. He grabbed a wheeled basket from the opposite side of the aisle and carefully placed two of the bottles in it, all the while ignoring McKayleigh’s voice in the back of his head saying what she always says to him “Jaxon, puHleese be normal.. don’t drink your personality babe”. Whatever, my money my rules he thought as he took a handful of steps over to the California wines, with his Sheepdog Whiskey in tow. He quickly pulled the eight bottles that McKayleigh requested off the shelf and placed them haphazardly into the basket, then rushed to the front of the store to pay. “That’ll be $185.” the clerk said, as Jaxon cringed and fumbled to get the proper credit card out of the straps on his minimalist wallet. Why someone that works in “Social Media” for an online tea brand would need to drink $150 worth of wine per week during the day on video calls, was yet another topic that when brought up only caused Jaxon a lot of grief. Her justification was that it helped with the creativity on the marketing aspect of things. All Jaxon saw was a weak cobbled together predictably earth tone colored aesthetic appealing to basic girls, mixed in with stale memes and forced-feeling inspirational quote style captions that weren’t clever, original, or funny, but were supposedly to “promote positivity and community”. It was hard for him not to laugh when he first heard her say the latter part out loud.

Back in the powerful 1500 Rebel, according to the GPS Jaxon was 3 minutes from home. He thought of text messaging McKayleigh to ask if she could pause the video on her call when he arrived, but decided against it because she was already in a “mood”. Pulling up to the driveway, Jaxon hit the opener button and waited for the garage door. He pulled inside, and walked around to grab the wine and whiskey from the passenger side, closing the garage door by hitting the button with his elbow as he entered the house with the bags. “JaxxoONNNNNNNN? hahhaha JaxxxxxxONNNNN?! ahahahaha ” he could hear coming from down the hall. There were several voices overlapping and they all sounded drunk. Oh great thought Jaxon, as he took his shoes off and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Upon reaching the kitchen McKayleigh grabbed her open laptop with one hand and jumped up to greet him, somehow already smelling like wine, trying to give him a sloppy kiss. “Are you still on your call?” asked Jaxon. “AHHAHHA Yea! You know Ashleigh, Bria, and Amberleigh!” “HEYYYY JAAAAAXON” they echoed somewhat in unison on screen. “Oh, uh hey girls!” Jaxon awkwardly replied. “What did you get her!? SHOW US!” Amberleigh shrieked as McKayleigh grabbed the two bags from Jaxon and started unloading them on camera. “Chardonnay, Chardonnay, Cab, Chardonnay, Shee….” she trailed off and turned beet red, quickly fumbling for the next bottle. “LOL WHAT WAS THE LAST ONE?!” exclaimed Bria. “Nevermind.” McKayleigh replied in a serious tone. “SHOW US. SHOW US. SHOW US.” the three girls began chanting. Jaxon picked the remaining Whiskey bottle from the bag and quickly held it up to the camera “Sheepdog Whiskey, and it’s peanut butter flavored!”. The girls absolutely lost it, distorting the sound on the macbook speakers with their high pitched squeals and cackles. McKayleigh instantly turned even more red. She glared at Jaxon, and quickly slammed her macbook screen down, ending the call.

Thoughts?