Theories of Insanity

8 | Nineteen

8 | Nineteen

Sunday, September 24, 2017

><

Insanity:

Stealing furniture as a birthday present when the RA is already a little bit crazy.

><

"Happy Birthday!"

I blinked my eyes open to see Ashley standing over my bed with balloons and streamers on the morning of my nineteenth birthday...and I do mean morning. It was 7:30 AM.

I was one of those people who absolutely loved my birthday. I didn't make a big deal out of it by any means—I didn't quite like being the center of attention, ever—but inwardly, I was always kind of hopeful that the people in my life would make a big deal out of it for me. I was someone who needed reassurance about being loved, or even liked, and thus being woken up at the crack of dawn by a smiling, excited face was something I found myself loving every second of.

"Ash, what time is it?"

"Way too early to be alive, but Paige and I had to get up at five to steal your birthday present for you!"

My eyes widened as I sat up in bed and shook my head to force myself to wake up.

"You stole my birthday present?"

"Well, the big one, yeah." Ashley nodded excitedly as Madison groaned from her bed across the room, the noise finally waking her. "We have a ton of little things out in the kitchen and living room, but the other one is a little bit bigger than the average birthday present."

I raised my eyebrows and rolled out of bed, following Ashley into the kitchen and living room—leaving Madison complaining about the time behind us. (1)

"Ta-da!" Ashley cried out in unison with Christina and Paige, who were already in the kitchen, giant smiles on their faces.

"Holy crap, you guys." I shook my head as I walked into the kitchen and looked out into the living room, my eyes wide. "This is insane."

The entire main part of our apartment was adorned from top to bottom with birthday decorations. There were pink streamers coming down from the ceiling, a homemade banner that read 'Happy Birthday' hanging across the wall above the couch, and gold balloons littering the floor around my feet. Christina was at the kitchen counter, flipping over chocolate pancakes while a little collection of presents sat on the corner of the counter.

"See the big one?" Ashley asked excitedly.

I looked over to the living room again and burst out laughing as I saw it. The huge gray-and-green ottoman from the activity room was in the middle of the floor in front of our couch, taking up just about as much space as the couch itself.

"You guys stole the ottoman?"

Ashley and Paige were both laughing hysterically.

"Yeah, and that isn't even from our activity room. There were no more left in our activity room from other people stealing them, so we went up to the second floor and took one of theirs."

"You should have seen it," Paige added, "Two girls dragging a giant ottoman into the elevator at 5:00 in the morning."

I laughed at the image in my head of the two of them doing that, in the dark, dragging around an ottoman while Ashley probably made way too much noise and Paige shushed her the entire way.