the most sublimely ridiculous thing happened to me today

• I went to go get packages during my lunch break because my apartment manager is open from 8:00-5:00pm and I am at work 8:00-7:00pm
• it was all big bulky but pretty light stuff (for my bed; I have a longterm houseguest and gave her all the things that made my bed bearable for HER bed, and I’m tired of sleeping on a rock-hard mattress and a blanket the cat threw up on)
• I thought I could handle the one-block walk back to my place and so declined the use of their two-wheeler and strolled blithely off with my two stupidly large boxes
• about three steps out I realized I’d made a terrible mistake but had too much pride to go back
• my arms were fully extended and my fingers were cramping and it hurt so bad I had to keep stopping, people were staring and asking if I was okay, IT WAS THE FUCKING WORST
• about halfway there, I decided to combine the boxes’ contents, which would have made it easier if, y’know, I was still at my apartment manager’s and could have disposed of the empty box somewhere
• but no
• I was outside
• on the street
• there were witnesses
• and no cover
• I maybe could have shoved it under a car but I live in that part of DC where the security guards would have gotten pretty nervous about mysterious boxes under vehicles
• so how I just had an empty box I still had to carry and an even heavier one to maneuver around
• it was over ninety-five, I was sweating, I kept dropping the empty box because somehow it was even more awkward now that it was empty???
• the empty box was hurting my fingers and embarrassing me in public so I low-key beat the shit out of it to try and make it flat so I could tuck it under my arm but it refused to be that accommodating
• I finally left it smashed over the top of a public trash can a hundred feet away from my apartment, and struggled on with the other one, made it, then went back to work
• fast forward to this evening, me in bed in pajamas within the first .05 seconds of arriving home from work (at six! it’s a miracle!), and reviewing my amazon orders
• I realize, huh. My playstation game didn’t come
• but wait
• it was in the same package as my bedding
• I thought to myself, no way. I would have seen it. there’s no fucking way my game is in that half-collapsed EMPTY box I left metaphorically smoldering on top of that stupid blue trash can
• fifteen minutes later I was outside in my jimjams rescuing my poor but thankfully undamaged Journey from the cardboard innards of that fucking fucker

the moral of the story, kids, is damn my pride and also never trust a box