Christmas Landing on Its Feet

Nobody Listens to Buck or Eddie, and They're Both Miserable

Eddie’s practically glaring at his groceries as he mumbles to himself, “Moron.”

But before he can spiral any further, of course the guy’s in the checkout next to him, and knowing better than to try and humiliate himself again, quickly picks up a magazine, opens it, and covers his face with it.

Buck, however, isn’t even paying attention to what’s going on next to him, because the person ringing up his groceries suddenly stops and exclaims,

“Oh my god, it’s you!”

Buck pauses from taking his groceries out of the cart for a moment, not entirely sure what she means by that, before she says,

“You saved my life!”

At that, Eddie can’t resist the temptation to take a peek over the magazine as the checkout girl declares,

“That’s it, I’m coming over to hug you.”, and proceeds to walk over to try and do just that, despite Buck’s protests,

“Oh no, really, that’s not necessary.”

The checkout girl completely ignores this, as she says, “This man...” and points at him, announcing to the other shoppers, “Climbed right through the vents in my apartment building and saved my life when my kitchen caught on fire and I couldn’t get my window open!”

Buck tries again, “Ma’am, I appreciate it, but really, I was just doing my job.”, but it proves to be pointless when she wraps her arms around him in a tight hug.

Eddie, despite his humiliation, laughs, while Buck just pats her on the back, and says, “Well, I’m glad you’re safe.”

When Buck finally pays for his groceries and makes his way out to his car, he gets a few smiles flashed his way, so really, what else can he be expected to do but smile back?

Eddie, meanwhile, is already at his car unloading his groceries into the truck, beating himself up.

“Don’t even think about it. Nothing but school and work, remember? And let’s say I was interested. There’s no way in hell he’d go for someone who thinks it’s normal to talk about a cat’s prostate in casual conversation. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

What Eddie doesn’t realize, however, is that in the middle of this, the firefighter appears out of nowhere, and suddenly starts running right for him.

For a second, Eddie dares to let himself hope he’s coming over to ask him out, but just as quick, that hope is dashed when he runs right past Eddie, grabbing his shopping cart that apparently rolled away from him when he wasn’t paying attention, just narrowly stopping it from hitting a car pulling out.

Eddie winces in embarrassment, despite being appreciative for the help, and when Buck brings it back over to him, he says as much,

“Thanks...”

Buck shrugs, “No big deal.”

Eddie replies, “No?”

Buck replies back, “Oh, you know I was just...”, then pretends to give up, “Merry Christmas.”, and walks away.

Eddie says, “Merry Christmas.” to the firefighter’s retreating back, before he turns and knocks his head on the side of the car.

“Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass!”

And Buck, who’s not far enough away to have not heard that, just laughs as he walks to his own car.

Later that night, Eddie’s sitting at the breakfast nook as he tells Jonsey, “See? Look. I’m watching TV.”, and points to it. “Who needs to date when I got all the balance I need?”