It took far longer than it should have for Hop to find the garden store. Upon finally arriving there, they did as any normal person would do; sat in the car waiting for somebody to come out and ask what they needed from the store. Hop would tell them that they needed rose seeds immediately because they couldn’t buy native seeds online like they wanted to. It would simply take too long for the order to be fulfilled. Having one of the shop servants do it would be much quicker.
As time passed and nobody came out to fulfil Hop’s order, they started to grow irritated. How could the service be this bad? Half an hour passed, then an hour, and still nobody had come to serve Hop. It got to the point where they decided the only reasonable course of action was to go inside and make a complaint.
Grunting in frustration, Hop got out of the car and started making their way toward the store. The invisible servants opened the doors for them, so at least the business wasn’t completely incompetent. Inside, Hop saw several people dressed in green and brown uniforms, but strangely there were other people there too, browsing the aisles on their own.
Hop walked up to a woman in the store’s uniform. “I need some Brindabella roses—”
“Aisle 15, just over there,” she said, rudely interrupting Hop.
They had intended to explain that nobody had come out to help Hop with the order, but it seemed almost as if this woman expected Hop to go get the rose seeds all on their own!
“I believe there has been some sort of mistake,” said Hop. “You’re supposed to get the roses for me and deliver them to my car, aren’t you?”
The woman cocked her head. “Oh, you mean like collect your online order? We haven’t done that since before the Collapse.”
Hop’s jaw fell open. So you really did have to do all the work to buy something. How barbaric. How did normal people live like this?
As Hop grumbled, starting toward aisle 15, they promised themselves they would never go to a store again. It would be online flower delivery from now on for them.