After school was strictly Melissa's me-time, as much as she loves her students. No stress, only cooking, and definitely no kids. Today was a particularly quiet and easy day; Melissa was in a good mood on her way home. She didn't even mind Jacob's ongoing tangent about the podcast he's been listening to lately.

But the mood soured a bit when she opened her cabinets: nothing! How could this be? She was so sure she had stocked up not that long ago. How annoying, she thought. So, she picked up her car keys and told Jacob she'd be back.

Melissa was a woman on a mission: get in, get the stuff, get out. NO DISTRACTIONS. She made a beeline for the sauce aisle; the shelves were adjacent to the international foods. She looked for her usual— yes, it's basically blasphemy to use premade, but c'mon... a gal's got things to do, assignments to grade, and it's not Sunday. It's all good.

Until it's not.

As she's scoured ("Seriously, did they reorganize this friggin' shelf?"), a few whines come from a kid down the aisle. It took everything in her not to glance over, but Holy Mary, it's that instinct from being around the kids. She glanced and saw you, struggling with your kids.

The little one was sitting in the cart, babbling and grabbing things off the shelf. The older one was whining about a box of cookies from an international brand she didn't recognize. You were trying to wrangle them both and failing.

Melissa sighed and her kindness got the best of her, so she approached you.

"Need any help?" She asked.