like the island

I am the most accidentally suspicious person ever.Today a professor asked me to do her a favor–go to her apartment and pick up a package that had been delivered so that she didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing it while she was at work. She gave me twenty bucks to do it. I couldn’t turn that down.

I always get incredibly jealous of professors’ homes because they’re always so nice and the homes I’ve lived in have never been that nice. I mean, my apartment now is cute but it’s small and I share it with two other people and I can hear everything going on above me in the apartment above mine. I also understand these people have jobs that aren’t part-time or in retail, but all I really want in life is some Restoration Hardware furniture in my living room.

I didn’t go inside her home because the package was outside, but I was impressed by the outdoor elevator I ended up taking not because I needed to but just because it was there. It felt kind of fancy and I felt kind of awkward being there.

After I picked up her package, I realized I did not appear to belong in this place, nor had I ever stopped by any office to make my presence or purpose here known and for all intents and purposes, I was a stranger rifling through and stealing my professor’s mail.

I panicked the moment I left the drive, when I passed a police patrol car and naturally assumed he was going to pull me over. I drove with my eyes on the rearview mirror for a couple blocks and then I realized I wasn’t helping my innocent image. I tried to keep calm as I rehearsed my speil I would give to the officer when he pulled me over for snooping around my professor’s home and taking her stuff. I would give him her number and he could call her to confirm my story, but oh wait, no I wouldn’t because I didn’t know her number. I turned down a street I didn’t need to go down to avoid the sightline of the officer driving the car.

I zig-zagged my way back to campus, hoping to deter anyone following me, hoping silently that no one had read my plates. Just as I turned into the library parking lot, a fire engine turned onto the street and raced toward me.

“Shit,” I thought. “They think I’ve got a bomb.”

I pulled my purse over the package and pulled into a parking spot. I sat in my car and tried not to hyperventilate. When the fire truck passed the parking lot, I finally opened my car door and proceeded toward my professor’s office.

I dropped the package off with her and she was happy and delighted and thankful. Several hours later, no one has shown up at my home to arrest me so I assume that everything is A-OK but knowing me, the fear that someone might will probably keep me up most of the night.