Hi and welcome back to dumb ideas I had at 2 am and had to write immediately: the largest argument among Spanish speaking states is actually what an avocado is called in Spanish. Gov's getting ready to ban avocados from the statehouse all together just to end the argument.
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Why California had decided to bring Florida to the grocery store with her she would never remember, but here he was. It was Saturday afternoon and the store was packed. The fact that they even found a parking spot seemed a miracle, but there were people everywhere, the lights were buzzing adding to the sound and Cal had forgotten their damn list so it just had to try to remember everything off the top of her head.
“Can you stop that?” California turned huffing, as Florida accidentally bumped the cart into her again because he wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m not doing it on purpose” the smile he had however told them everything they needed to know about the truthfulness of that statement.
It shook her head, looking at the cart trying to remember the last thing. There were too many sounds, the aisles felt narrower than usual, she could picture what she needed but couldn’t remember the word for the life of her; “We need um… the green things, they have seeds?”
“Grapes?” Florida offered, seemingly interested by the new guessing game.
“No, no, not seeds…” dammit why was this so hard, “pits”
“Pagua?”
“What?”
“Pagua”
California only looked more confused, “Saying it again doesn’t tell me what it is,”
“It's um…” Florida contracted a similar look to California, trying to remember the word in English, multitasking was not his strong suit and it spread to every part of his life. He repeated the word in Spanish to himself a few times as if doing that would suddenly make him remember.
“You forgot the word”
“So did you, at least I remember it in one language” Florida didn’t explain where he was going taking off with the cart, California quickly following behind.
Even though they had already been there earlier Florida headed right back to the produce section, finally spotting what he was looking for, so did California, both at the same time reading the sign and exclaiming “avocado!”
California began what was more or less a ritual when it came to picking out ones that were close enough to being ripe she wouldn’t forget about them and let them get overripe on the counter, but also ones that weren’t so ripe it would have five minutes once it had left the store to eat it. Florida mimicked California picking one up and carefully inspecting it, he however picked up one of the aforementioned too ripe ones and accidentally squeezed too hard. He looked around quickly before putting it back and wiping the greenish-brown sludge on his pants, trying to pretend like nothing had happened.
Cali was halfway through finding the perfect avocados when she looked up suddenly, “Wait, what did you call them?”
“Pagua, what else would you call them?”
“Aguacate, the right name for them.” California was usually pretty accepting of others views and opinions, what avocados were called in Spanish was however not something they would compromise on.
“That’s subjective,” Florida was hanging off the shopping cart, California rushing just a bit more to pick them out because she knew Florida wouldn’t stop if asked and was more likely to knock over the cart then anything.
“It's not subjective, they call them aguacate in Spain.”
“Since when is mom the authority on the Spanish language?” California actually couldn’t argue with that, Spain had lost the rights to her own language years ago.
For the sake of being right though… “Since she invented it?”
“Bullshit!” Florida half yelled, Cal was somewhere between embarrassed, mostly because there were small children not far from them, and relieved because at least with that he had gotten off the side of the cart.
“It's not bullshit, they’re called aguacate” for emphasis she waved one in the air… moments before committing the same mistake as Florida and squeezing it a little too hard. Florida laughed as she also just carefully checked for employees before returning the mangled fruit back to its spot and deciding maybe it was time to go.
~~~~~
California was on their way up to the West floor with its groceries when it ran into someone she never would have expected to be happy to see, “Texas!”
He stopped turning to look at her confused by the excitement, “California?”
Florida showed up another bag in his arms, “Look Flo, you’ll see,” she set one of the bags down and dug around for a moment before pulling out an avocado, “Tex what do you call this?”
“An avocado?”
“In Spanish dumbass,” Florida commented, “I call it pagua, she calls it aguacate, we need you to break the tie”
Texas looked between the two for a moment, clearly he knew it was aguacate, anyone with half a brain cell knew that. Which is why Florida didn’t know that. Of course he didn’t want California to win, but he didn’t want to look like he had less than half a brain cell either… he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, when he realized there was a way out.
He adjusted his hat, waiting for all hell to break lose, “palta, obviously”
Space Force trying to establish satellites as Pokemon Go Stops
"Space, do we think this was proper use of military resources?"
Space Force kicked her feet a little bit, her toes barely touched the floor in this chair. She was avoiding Defense's gaze, she didn't think she was going to get in trouble for this. Air Force didn't care, she had even laughed when she found out. Army had given her a small lecture about being responsible, but even he wasn't upset.
Space looked up as there was a small scraping, a cellphone slid over the table with an app open. Pokemon go, specifically.
"no one plays Pokemon go anymore." she stated bluntly, it wasn't really a lie. The game had been mostly popular in 2016, three whole years before she was even born... or, created? established? something like that. Space only found out about it because Navy made fun of the lengths Air used to go to for it.
"apparently you do." just like that Defense reached for the remote clicking on the tv behind him, what popped up was a list of pokestops for the game. Among the list were a few... satellites, mostly belonging to the US Air & Space Force but also a few SpaceX and maybe a couple NASA. All which she had access to.
Space Force was good at a lot of things: complicated math in her head, memorizing the inner workings of ion thrusters, coming up with clever-ish ways to tease NASA (Nerds of Average Science Ability was one of her better ones). Space Force was also not good at a lot of things: opening salsa jars, running the mile and a half in less then sixteen min (it isn't her fault she has short legs), and most importantly in this scenario... lying.
"that wasn't me" she tried anyway, finally looking up at Defense but not really looking in his eyes.
There was a long moment of silence, then Defense cracked a smile for the first time since she had shown up at his office door; "don't let Gov find out"
"I'm sorry?"
Defense turned off the tv, "help me beat Air Force, don't let Gov find out, you can do whatever you'd like"
The Mid-West have an intervention for Illinois because they think NY and Cali are abusing him financially by being strict with his finances. Illinois confuses them by crying "Finally! Please tell them to let me buy my own stuff! I have money they won't let me spend 😭"
I'm sorry but I laughed so hard at this ask I had to write it:
Tw for mentions of abuse but nothing is actually happening ✌️ (<- vaguely funny that is the second time i've used that warning for a fic)
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Illinois dropped his backpack to be able to take his shoes off, if anything was going to drive Minnesota to murder it would be someone in the house with their shoes on. He had been spending most of his time on the West and Northeast floors due to his boyfriends--and more importantly both of them half refusing to step foot on the Midwest floor anymore--but after this trip to Upstate NY with them he was ready to be back in his own bed.
He picked his bag back up, opening the door past the mudroom calling out: "I'm home!"
He didn't actually expect a response, it was more a warning lest he scare anyone then anything else. What he didn't expect was everyone sitting in the living room, the tv was paused and all eyes went to him. Great, what had he done this time? Ever since he had refused to go to Gov's 'big five', or whatever he was calling them now, meetings and lost the Midwest seat to Louisiana of all people it had seemed easier for them to find reasons to be upset at him.
"Hello?" He said a little more confused, any region being all together just casually was rare this wasn't any different. He looked at the scene on the tv, "Oh god, what blackmail does Indy have to get you all to watch more parks and rec?"
No one laughed.
"Nothing," Ohio finally spoke, "We were just hanging out and it's what she wanted to watch" He hesitated before asking, "How are California and New York?"
"They're good" He sat down in a chair across from the couch, shrugging and joking, "Maybe if you all hadn't scared them off they would come here more"
"We were nothin' but nice to them" Missouri defended, "Ain't our fault they don't like coming around"
"yeah that's what scared them" he pulled his knees up to his chest, "But yeah, no, yeah they're good, doing well. I had fun, I like upstate it's quiet..." he trailed off awkwardly.
No ones eyes moved off him, no one said anything else either, he laughed a little bit; "everything okay? Someone die while I was gone?"
"No... no" Indiana said something after but was too quiet to be heard, stuttering over the words.
"For goodness sake, we're worried about you Illinois" Michigan said what everyone was thinking, the reason they were all here together.
This confused Illinois even more than the already odd behavior: "worried? why?"
"I'm not" Wisconsin raised his hand, "Can I leave?"
Minnesota hushed him, going as far as to grab his hand and put it down; "Just how you talk about New York and California sometimes makes us worry they're...." He trailed off looking for a gentle way to phrase it but coming up empty.
"controlling your finances?" Kansas offered, everyone nodding in agreement.
"Exactly! Thank you, Kansas...and if they're making it so you're entirely dependent on them then--"
Every expression in the room went from worried to confused as Illinois just started laughing, "I'm not dependent on them, they just won't let me spend my own money because... I don't know why frankly," he stood picking up his backpack and slowly, backing his way towards his bedroom, "Thanks for the concern, really, but I have full access to all my bank accounts California and New York are just... idiots"
Federal meetings were…Gov searched for the right word, they were less chaotic, but their size made up for it. Between the cabinet, the agencies, the branches, Supreme Court and the Judges, plus anyone else you could think of there were easily over five hundred people in the room compared to the fifty-five to fifty-six that came with State and Territory Meetings.
“How are you holding up?” Gov jumped as DC appeared behind him. District of Columbia was the only personification Gov knew of in the US to represent something on both a federal and non-federal level, so he showed up to both. He also knew Gov arguably hated Federal meetings more then State & Territory meetings, at least states and territories would tell him to his face that they hated him and not just make snide remarks behind his back.
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Organization for Transformative Works
Gov was prepared for a lot of things when it came to table meetings, not this though. Couldn't he just have one normal day?
(aka hws america gets tossed into the wttt universe they don't know how he got there, but lets introduce him to the states while Gov tries to figure out how to get him back)
