joke's on me

I had been planning it for a while. Stewart Knight’s birthday gift would include digestive aids – a continuation of a Classics Trip joke.

I took a jaunt over to the ol’ CVS, made a beeline to the medicine section, and began to forage through the aisles in pursuit of the funniest thing I could possibly find. It was a tough choice, but I finally settled on Chocolate Ex-Lax, a bottle of Bean-O-On-The-Go, and a bag of flax “pure fiber” seeds. I was satisfied.

I scavenged a re-usable gift bag from a post-birthday girl on my hall, and carried the goods around with me for the rest of the day in hopes of running into Stewart. I called her a few times, trying to find her. No answer. Finally, I decided to walk down to the F apartments and hand it over. After the hike there, I marched up to Stewart’s door and knocked fervently. No answer. “No biggie. I’ll just leave it on the doorstep.” With no tag, no note, no nothin’ – I sat the neon pink gift bag outside Stewart’s door and headed out.

The next day:

24 hours later— I’d heard nothing. I figured she was busy, hadn’t had time to email. Worst case scenario – she didn’t know it was me. Implausible. The wait was KILLING me because I have the patience of a goldfish in such situations; I resolved to call her up:

Stew: [picking up the phone] Hello.
AM: Hey Stew! Did you get your bday gift I left outside your door yesterday?!?!
Stew: No.
AM: Wait. You didn’t get the gift bag outside of your apartment yesterday?
Stew: No. one of my roommate’s probably picked it up, thinking it was theirs.
AM: Which floor do you live on?
Stew: the 3rd floor.

My stomach dropped. And that’s when I realized – I had left a bag of laxatives OUTSIDE THE WRONG DOOR... a door of unknown residents…on the 2nd floor… And I was going to have to be the bigger person and go ask for my laxatives back.

A full 27 hours after the initial visit to “stewart’s apartment”, I scuffled back to the door, dragging Lee along as moral support, realizing this time that the names of the residents were posted clearly from the outside. I knocked gingerly, and a girl named Anna answered. I said, “did you guys receive a bag of laxatives?.. yadda yadda.” It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life.

Needless to say, I made 5 new friends that day. All of which now refer to me as: the girl who left us the laxatives.