What am I, a magnet to random people these past few days?

I’m sitting in my room in my pajama pants and a t-shirt, hacking away at my computer, as normal. ;-)

I hear a girl knock on my neighbors’ door, and no one answers. Next is mine.

Now at this point I’m thinking they are looking for donations or something to help with a sorority.

Since my door is open, I have to answer it.

“Hello,” I say, leaning back in my chair. Hey, my room is small enough I don’t have to get up. ;-)

“Oh hello,” A girl says, walking into my room holding a box that is closed. She has on a hat and a big, poof-y coat, and she looked like she had JUST walked in from outside (it’s pretty cold outside, I might add…)

“Hi,” I say, wondering what a girl knocking on my door and carrying a box could POSSIBLY want. The box is pretty medium-sized and folded shut, but had been previously taped shut from the looks - I can’t see inside it.

“Do you want to play a game?” She asks, giving the box a little shake. I set my keyboard on top of my desk (Normally I have it in my lap for extended use - which is, oh wait, ALWAYS) and I stand up.

“Ummmm…yeah…sure…” I say, mildly curious as to what the game is.

“The game is called: ‘Bigger or Better’,” The girl says, eyeing me. “Do you want to play?”

Thinking this was a joke and my RA or someone is standing out in the hallway, I move towards my door. Since she is much shorter than I am, she takes an automatic step backwards as if I am going to chase her out.

I glance into the hallway and into the faces of about 7 people who all look like they just came from the freezing cold outside - all of them in coats, and one of them blowing his breath into his gloves.

Who are these people?

“Yeah sure, what do I have to do?” I say, making up my mind to play. Now I am mildly curious as to what is in the box.

“Well, if you can give us something that is bigger, or better, than what is inside this box, then you can have the box and whatever is inside,” She says, giving the box a mild shake for added effect.

“Sureeee, why not,” I say, looking around my room for something bigger or better. Now I just want to know what is in the damn box, not actually get it - but I’ll play their silly game anyways. I have a few one-dollar bills sitting on my bed from god-knows-when, so I snatch one up.

“A dollar?” I say, holding it in front of her.

She looks out in the hallway, communicating silently with her teammates for whatever reason.

“Noooo, we can’t take money…” She says slowly, staring at me. I throw the dollar back on my bed. I look under my bed for something - food maybe? I break open my plastic box with all of my food and grab a mini bag of popcorn.

“What about this?” I ask, holding the un-popped popcorn bag in front of her.

“Yes, you win!” The girl says, taking my mini bag of popcorn and thrusting the box into my hands. It’s very light, I notice at once.

“Enjoy your gift and thanks for playing!” She says and walks briskly down the hallway, as if trying to get away from me as fast as possible.

Wasting no time, I tear open the box and find inside…

A bunch of packing peanuts.

I laugh out loud to myself, not at all upset that I had just been conned.

I look out my doorway to see where they are going - she is already at the end of the hallway and is on her cellphone with someone, holding my mini-bag of popcorn in the other hand - the other people following her closely.

“Hey, you know Jeff? Has he played ‘Bigger or Better’ before?” I hear her ask her cellphone before she whips around the corner and out of sight.

I wonder if they have a room full of boxes filled with packing peanuts somewhere and they are just trying to get rid of them. Obviously since it is a box filled with packing peanuts, ANYTHING would be ‘Bigger or Better’.

I guess that is the joke.

However I now have packing peanuts AND most likely a good use for them - Mischief Night is coming up soon and now I have one more thing to use. :-)

People really do random things living in the dorms - I guess because it is such an open atmosphere, however…

I’m standing, like I normally do, almost in my doorway, my door open, watching TV and eating a Reece’s Peanut Butter cup - I bought some candy this past weekend and put it in a plastic pumpkin hoping people will randomly take some - so far most of the Reece’s have gone to my stomach, luckily. ;-)

So I’m standing there, and two girls call out, walking down the hallway towards me. (Since my doorway faces the hall, I can see all the way down it).

“Hey, we have a question,” A blonde-haired girl says, talking as if she wants to fight.

“Um, what’s that?”

“Do you have any scary movies?” The other girl says, with brown hair. I assumed they were both from my floor and that I had just not seen them yet. Hey, it’s possible…

“Um yeah sure,” I say, walking over to my binders and pulling them both out. I turn around and both girls are both standing in my room - I hand a binder to each of them.

“Oh wow, you just made my night!” The blonde-haired girl squeals excitedly, flipping through my binder of movies at top speed. The brown-haired one has my binder of burned movies, and she is flipping though them more slowly.

I do a little dance to get around them and stand back in my spot, right in front of the TV, and continue watching my movie.

“Hey is it okay if we borrow a few of these?” The blonde-hair girl asks excitedly. I look over.

“Oh yeah, sure,” I say.

“Do you always watch TV that closely?” The brown-haired girl asks, eyeing my position in relation to the TV.

I admit, I am pretty close - I normally lean against my wall when the door is closed and watch it instead that way - I hate sitting down all the time (since I’m on the computer for 99% of my time in my room) so as a contrast when I am just watching TV normally I stand right by it.

“I only watch TV this close when my contacts are out,” I say half-jokingly, half-not. They both laugh.

I’m still wearing my contacts.

“Oh, The Sixth Sense!” The blonde-haired girl says, leaning over to see what page the brown-haired girl is looking at.

“Oh by the way, I’m Kristin,” The brown-haired girl says. I take her hand and shake it.

“And I’m Jennifer,” The other girl says, taking my hand in turn.

“I’m Jillian,” I say, shaking both of their hands. Now I’m wondering…

“Are you two from the floor?” I ask politely.

“Oh no,” Kristin says, “We’re from the fifteenth floor.”

What I wanted to ask was “Why did you come up to floor 17 to get movies…?” but instead came out:

“Oh,” I said. I go over to my desk and take out a post-it note. Kristin tells me what room she is in and I write down her room number.

After a bit of debating they take both Saw and The Sixth Sense. Now both of those movies came from my “Burned” binder, so I really don’t care if they ever bring them back, but I mean just in case I don’t see them in awhile…

I wrote down which movies they took as well.

“Oh don’t worry,” Jennifer says, “We’ll bring them back!”