“Well…I find you interesting.”
“Interesting?” Seri’s brow rose.
“Okay, maybe interesting is the wrong word. More that I think I’d like to be your friend.” The Nymph’s frown deepened and, predicting the man was about to ask why again, he added, “I don’t think people need a set-in-stone reason to be friends with someone. And most who have such concrete reasons, outside of common goals, interests, or just meshing with someone’s personality, probably aren’t really friends. But if you NEED one, I think your weird will mesh well with my weird.”
Seri let out a humored snort. “Fair enough.” The Nymph eyed the pile of playmat pieces.“Need some help?”
“I would love some help.” He grabbed the instructions and held them up. “I’m not sure what language this is written in, but it’s not English.”
Seri stared. “What exactly have you been doing the last hour then?”
“Looking at pictures.”
“You…” The man rubbed his face and stood up, walking over to the discarded box the playmat from hell had come in. Seri picked it up and looked inside. Turning it upside down, he stared Severo dead in the eye as he shook the box and another folded piece of paper fell out.
“Ah…hmm…” He stared sheepishly at Seri. “Well…they must have gotten stuck on something when I dumped it.”
Seri rolled his eyes and snagged the no doubt English instructions off the floor, before walking back over and sitting down among the mess. “Let’s try to get this put together before dinner, shall we?”
Seri eyed the instructions,his back hurting from having sat hunched there for so long. “These are by far the worst instructions I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah…even being in English, most of it doesn’t make sense.” Severo sighed. Grabbing the folded piece of paper, he started to read aloud. “Connect the bobble connector to the twisted spring connection. But make sure both face ends are pointed towards the butt ends, while facing out. While what is facing out?!”
Seri grabbed them from him and tossed them aside, stretching with a grunt, before leaning back against the couch. “I give up. I had hoped stopping for dinner would have somehow given time for us to find new perspectives on whatever the heck they are trying to say, but yeah, no. We should have questioned the toy completely with the instructions being on printed paper anyway.”
Paper is more expensive than thin tablets nowadays…why would they bother?!
“There was the option of paying for assembly, however…it was in-home assembly only. As in, someone would show up here to put it together. Which doesn’t really work for us.”
Seri eyed him. He wasn’t sure why, but Severo looked like someone who wouldn’t even think about paying for assembly. “Would you have paid for it even if we could have people freely walking in and out of here?”
“It was three hundred dollars more. The price alone would have me deciding to put it together by myself, even if we could have people over here. That being said,” Severo chuckled. “I’d have called to pay and set up a day for it to be assembled after that first hour of ‘progress’.”
Seri stared, mind reeling from the cost. “No wonder they wasted money on paper! They’d get it back in assembly costs with how trash their instructions are. But how much was this thing in the first place that assembly costs that much?”
Severo avoided his gaze, softly admitting, “A few grand.”
The Nymph made a choking noise. “A few grand?! For a playmat?! Prices are high, but not that high!”
“Well, it had all these safety features, and it's supposed to be ‘the’ playmat to have, if you have one. Not to mention, it adapts and adjusts up to age four. So, like, four years of use seemed like a good investment. Also, I’d like to point out that the miracle crazy baby seat you have likely cost more.”
“It did, but it literally can be a stroller, car seat, booster seat, crib, high chair, chest and back baby wrap, and more. Which, when you are hiding from someone, is very useful. To add on, I used the money I stole from Preston to buy it, so paying that much was sort of extra satisfying. What can this pile of parts do?”
Severo eyed the pile. “Well…it can make a lot of noise, and has a built-in TV somewhere….”
Seri giggled. “It was a good thought, but I think returning it may be the best option.”
“Yeah…” Severo tossed a piece into the pile with a sigh.
“Also…did you…use Ender’s cards to pay for that? Something I should have asked earlier. I mean, of course you probably did…”
He’d hate to think they were driving up a huge bill for Ender and his group after all they’d done…
“No. I used my own.”
Seri’s eyes widened in alarm. “Your own? I assumed you had used it up when you bought that car.”
“Ah…no, that didn’t even put a dent in my account. I mean, I’ve had that thing for a long time. For purposes of…well, really because Ender is my friend and insistent as all…heck. I created that separate bank account listed under a fake name back in my thirties. And I’ve been transferring money into it since then.”
