Southern Comforter

Story Sent in by David:

When I was at the University of Alabama, I met Brooke online. She appeared on our date with a large bed comforter wrapped in plastic. She said she had come from the cleaners and didn't have anywhere else to put it. "What about your car?" I asked her, "I don't mind walking with you so that you can put it in your car."

"No," she said, "Then you'll see what my car looks like and I'm not comfortable with that."

We had a booth at dinner and she propped up the comforter next to her the whole time. The waiter gave it a look when he first came to the table but didn't say anything about it.

If the fact that she had a comforter with her wasn't enough, she began talking to it.

At first, I thought she was talking to me, but when she said, "It must be nice to be a comforter," and I said, "How do you mean?" and she replied, "I was talking to the comforter," I knew that something was really, really wrong.

When she put her ear to the plastic surrounding the comforter and then laughed as if it had told her something really funny, then I knew something was really, really, really wrong.

When I paid for dinner, neither she nor the comforter offered to pay, and I paid just to end things quick and be done with it.

Afterward, we walked around the block together and stopped abruptly at a red car. She said, "Here's my car. So I'm going to go."

I said, "I thought you didn't want me to see your car."

She said, "Yeah, but I think you're all right. The blanket seemed to like you," then she hugged me and said that she really wanted to see me again.

I haven't seen her since.