It Was Dignity

Story Sent in by Kyle:

I had been out on a couple of dates with Mavis over the course of a month and I liked her a lot. We just clicked. On our third date I asked her out to see a movie and then planned to hit up a bowling alley afterward. She was game, and it was a date.

I picked her up at her apartment and she asked me, "Do you mind if we run a quick errand, first? I need to swing by my storage unit."

Mavis's storage unit was about 20 miles away in the opposite direction of the movie theater. I hadn't bought tickets yet, but we'd have to see a later showing. Not a big deal, though. At least I was spending time with her.

Once we made it to her storage unit, she opened the door and turned on the light.

The first thing that struck me was the smell. It smelled so terrible that I thought I'd pass out. It was like the combined roadkill and mold of centuries past, all sitting together in five cardboard boxes.

Mavis herself seemed unperturbed by it and she opened up a box, looked through it, didn't find what she was searching for, and opened up the next one. I had to stand outside a good few yards away. It was seriously the worst scent that had ever invaded my nose.

After what seemed like an hour, I heard her say, "Found it!" and she exited her unit with a large brown paper bag with all sorts of stains all over it.

"What is that?" I asked her.

"Oh, just something I needed to grab. Can we swing back to my place? I just want to drop it off. Sorry about all this."

The thing in the paper bag, whatever it was, smelled like Satan's rotten eggs. And she wanted it to travel with us. In my car. For 20 miles.

"What is it?" I asked again.

She said, "Just an old project I want to keep working on. We can drive with the windows down. It's a nice night, right?"

"It's stained the bag. Is it leaking? What is it?"

She said, "Okay. I asked for your help. If this is gonna be such a big deal, I'll call my friend Eric, he'll come over with his pickup truck, pick me up, and then he and I can hang out tonight. Or you can stop being a drama queen, help me out, and we can go have a good time. Now what's it going to be?"

I hope she and Eric and whatever was in the mystery bag had a blast.