All I wanted was NyQuil.

My boyfriend and I were at his apartment watching the Giants football game. I don’t know much about football, but it’s becoming more and more a part of the holiday season for me, so it’s comfortable to have a game on when we’re together.

My boyfriend started losing his voice early in the day, and by the time the Giants reached half time he was starting to feel sick with a cold. I ran out to the Kroger down the street to grab some NyQuil for him.

I walked into Kroger. I regularly visit this particular location, so I know exactly where I’m going. I get to the pharmaceutical aisle and locate the NyQuil. I start to compare bottles and all of a sudden some guy comes up behind me and says the following:

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the cigarettes are?”
I gave him a confused look and promptly said “Uh, I don’t work here. Sorry.”
“Oh, you don’t? I’m sorry. Actually, I know you don’t work here. I just saw you when you walked in and your hair, and just knew I had to come over.”
“Oh.”
The guy took a step back from me, looked me up and down, uttered a “wow”, and then headed back across the store.

Now me, being the paranoid individual that I am, quickly grabbed the bottle of NyQuil, grabbed two rolls of paper towels and practically ran to the self-checkout kiosk. I got I.D.ed for the NyQuil, put my phone and a pen into my pocket just for safety reasons as I didn’t know where Creepazoid had slinked off to. I jumped back into my car and drove the eighth of a mile back to my boyfriend’s apartment.

Once I got back to his house and had put everything where it belonged, I realized my phone was missing. I searched all over the apartment. Nothing. So, I bundled back up and went back out into the cold to look in my car. (Mind you, it’s 3 degrees outside with a windchill of -15 degrees. There are 20mph winds and the remains of accumulation of 11 inches of snow fill the parking lot caked with slush and snowdrifts.) (I’m really not excited at this point.)

I search my car and the freezing parking lot, and after every attempt to find my phone there returns void, I go back to Kroger, where of course my phone has not been turned in.

This is when I remember that my phone had died just before I misplaced it. Even better. So it’s dark, cold, snowy, and calling my phone won’t even turn the backlight on for me to see it.

I get back to my boyfriend’s house, when he says that I should probably go home so that I can use a roommate’s phone to let him know I made it home safe.

So, I head home. I’m trying to think of the most painless way to wake one of my roommates up if I find them all asleep. But, to make my evening even more ironic, I come home to a completely empty house. So, then I have to go online and have a friend text my boyfriend to tell him I made it home safely.

The one night I forget my phone it’s dark and 5 degrees outside. The one night I need a roommate to be home, they’re all out. The one day I talk to my sister about how jealous I am of her phone, my phone disappears. The one night I go to Kroger without my boyfriend, I get hit on by some creep. The one night I need to use a phone, I have to resort to going online and getting a friend to deliver the message. The one night I just needed NyQuil and paper towels, my evening goes into the blender.

I don’t think I could have handled much more irony in one night.

All I wanted was NyQuil.

Tagged: adventure, irony, nyquil, snow, story, winter

Posted in: winter