The Time of My Life 1: A Disappearing Act

Alright. My first story takes us back to August 2009. It was the beginning of my sophomore year. I had just moved into apartment 110 of Roman Gardens with Marjorie, Lindsay, and Amy.

Actually, I've gotta give you a bit of a back story first. The previous winter, our freshman year, we had gotten into a prank war with an apartment of boys in our ward. One of our pranks included buying 6 travel alarm clocks, setting them for random times throughout the hours of the night that one should be sleeping, and hiding them in various places all over their apartment. (Sadly the plan and execution of hiding the clocks were all that was good...between the low volume of the alarms and doing it on the eve of a holiday from school it was an unsuccessful prank.) Well, at the end of it all, we were left with 6 alarm clocks. I claimed one to use for myself because I was in need of a new one. And I hate the complicated, obnoxious blaring things that alarms have become nowadays.

Ok, now we're actually to August 2009. Marjorie and I were sharing a room. I was still using said alarm clock. Now, this alarm clock had a second hand on it that ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick. I thought it soothing and kind of liked listening to it as I fell asleep. After finding it shoved under a pillow a couple times I starting thinking though that maybe Marjorie didn't.

So we had been living in 110 for, maybe five days or so. We were still in the atrocious unpacking stage where the floors of all the rooms are just covered in boxes and all of your worldly possessions. And then...it happened.

I had my alarm clock sitting on the dresser that was next to our window at the time. We had the window open to air out the strange smell that had seemingly come with the apartment. And I came in the room...and heard silence. No noise. Nothing.

I rushed to my alarm clock to see what was the matter. Why did it stop?! I popped open the back, and *gasp* nothing! The batteries had VANISHED.

I dashed back to the living room and frantically asked, "Do any of you guys know what happened to the batteries in my alarm clock?" Everyone looked at me blankly. They were not aware yet of the heinous crime. I explained that the batteries had disappeared out of my alarm clock and asked again if any of them knew anything about it. They all claimed they didn't know.

After talking to them it was obvious what had happened.

A hobo had come and reached through my window, taken the batteries out of my alarm clock, and left the clock there, dead. He didn't want me to wake up on time. What an evil hobo.

I think I went on kind of believing that something like that happened for quite a while. I was almost convinced that it was the only reasonable explanation since my roommates didn't seem to know what had happened to the batteries. Someone must have reached in through the window and taken them. Or it was a ghost. We had one of those who followed us. His name was Clarence.

Alas, it was a mystery. One that I didn't think would be solved until that day after you die when you get to watch the movie of your life and everything makes sense.

Fast forward....let's say a year and a half. I don't remember exactly when this happened, but it was a significant amount of time later.

Marjorie and I were chatting one time. Like we did a lot. Just talking about anything and everything. Then she turned to me and with a serious look on her face said, "Stephanie. I have something to confess to you." That's one of those things that I never quite know how to take. Is it gonna be a good confession? A bad one? Am I gonna be angry? Excited? WHAT KIND OF CONFESSION?

"You remember that time the batteries from your alarm clock disappeared...? It wasn't a hobo...it was me."

I still remember that I was so shocked! I had mostly forgotten about the incident. Once in a while it was brought up when we were talking about mysterious things that happened. But I thought it was exactly that: a mystery. I really didn't think that it had been one of my roommates. They had been so convincing all the time, acting like they had no idea what had happened either.

Marjorie and I laughed so hard that night. Still to this day I don't know how I legitimately thought someone was so desperate for a pair of AA batteries that they had to reach in our window and steal them from my alarm clock. And it also explained the two random batteries that we found in our closet when we moved out.