'When I worked in a fast food chain, a customer put '86 cherries' as a pretentious way to say no cherries, but the store was run by a bunch of teenagers who were working their first job, and were like "why the **** would they want 86 cherries" and started piling cherries into the milkshake.'
The tiles used to be white. You used to be able to see the bench top, a white marble speckled with black flecks, wiped down and clean.
Instead, cherry red drops were splattered across the kitchen, dripping down the tiles, sitting in sticky puddles on the floor, and draped across every surface like royal velvet on an old English loveseat. The blender lay in the middle of the mess, the lid disappeared to who knows where, and the pitcher almost empty of the contents it should hold.
Kimi and Ollie stood in the middle of the mess, once white aprons splattered red, cheeks dotted with whipped cream and sticky, dried ice cream blobs. They stared at the kitchen with absolute frozen horror, jaws hanging slightly.
The media teams were equally shocked, staring at the two drivers. What began as a harmless content video now looked like a murder scene from Criminal Minds.
The silence broke a few seconds later with a disbelieving laugh from Ollie. He lowered his arms from where they were frozen and looked around him. There wasn’t a spot in the kitchen where the bomb of cherries hadn’t reached.
“This was not my fault!” Kimi immediately broke out of his stupor, already turning to point the finger at Ollie.
Ollie scoffed. “How is it my fault?! You put the cherries in!”
Kimi gasped, clearly offended. His hand flung to clutch his heart, whipping his head to glare at Ollie. “I did not! Okay, maybe a few, but you put the ice cream in!”
“Yeah, the right amount!”
“As did I! The instructions said 86 cherries!” His curls bounced as his head snapped to look at the accursed blender that sat on the splattered bench.
“Are you sure it didn’t say 8.6 cherries? Who eats 86 cherries!” Ollie replied exasperatedly, setting off to try and find the missing lid. He peered under the bench, groaning when he found another splatter of cherry milkshake.
“Ollie.” Kimi turned his whole body to face Ollie, putting his hands on his waist and staring at him seriously. “I can read. It said 86 – eight, six. Together. You can’t even get point six of a cherry!”
Ollie huffed, managing to find the lid lodged behind the toaster on the opposite side of the kitchen.
“Guys,” one of the media managers cleared their throat, “you did know that it means no cherries… right?”
“What!?” They cried in unison.
“That is stupid!” Kimi scoffed.
“Why couldn’t they just be normal and say no cherries!” Ollie burst. “If they want their milkshake they can come clean up this mess.” He grumbled moving to try and find some sort of wiper.
