The Unexpected Gift

I’ve come across a nice tornado of prompt and mind that seemed to meld well together.  Over at Ray NotBradbury prompt-o-thon she had an interesting prompt that I decided to participate in, “The Unexpected Gift.”  My idea is…dumb, to say the least but it made me laugh and really that’s all that matters because I rule.

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“Here,” Evelyn shoves a box wrapped in newspaper into Raymond’s stomach.

“Oof, hey!  Chill.  What is this?”  Raymond looks at her in a surprised, yet annoyed expression.

“Just open it, Ray.  If I wanted you to know what it was I wouldn’t have wrapped it.”  Evelyn returned the annoyed tone.

Raymond looked at her with a raised eyebrow and slowly started to peel back the packaging.  He noticed the headlines on the newspaper and saw it was from last month.

“Who keeps a newspaper laying around their house for a month?”

Evelyn was unimpressed, “someone who needs wrapping paper but doesn’t believe in spending gobs of money on it.  Now rip the damn paper off the box and open it!”

“Okay!  Okay.  Geez,” Raymond switched from delicately pulling at the seams of the paper to clawing at it as if his lunch was trapped inside.

Beneath the paper was a shoe box from Pay-Less.  He lifted the lid and inside was a bunch of papers and a Blockbuster card.  Raymond tilted his head to the side in confusion then looked up at her.

“What the hell?  Why are you giving me these-,” he stopped and sifted through the papers and saw they were receipts, “receipts and a Blockbuster card?  What the fuck am I going to do with that?”

Evelyn just stared at him.  Her arms were folded.  She didn’t answer.  He looked back in confusion and picked up a few of the receipts.

“I uh, Ev?  What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Look closer.  The stuff at the bottom.”

Raymond picked up the sheet of paper lining the bottom of the box, folded in half.  He opened it and mumble-read words on it.

“Hello…Inform you of our…not returned…immediate compensation based on…Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home…$50?!  What the hell!  Why do they want $50 for fucking Free Willy 2 and why are you giving this to me?!

“Because you rented it and never returned it!”  Evelyn yelled back.

“I did not!”

“You did too!  It was 2003 and we were still roommates in that apartment on Gottigen Street.  You were fucking high and said you wanted to watch a movie and I said that sounds great but I’m not going out.  I gave you my Blockbuster card and you came back with god damn Free Willy 2.”

Her tone was frantic and annoyed.  Evelyn was a waitress at a crappy restaurant and she didn’t have $50 to throw away at Blockbuster because they were going under and wanted to recoup all of their loses.  Raymond was the idiot who didn’t return the movie so he can pay for it, she thought.

“I remember this vividly because I was looking forward to a good movie like Catch Me If You Can or About Schmidt and you come back with an 8-year-old, straight to DVD sequel from a kids movie!  I asked you why and you said-”

Raymond interrupts, recanting his words slowly, “I want to see Michael Madsen fuck up a god damn whale.”

“YES!”  Evelyn points at him, “and I called you a moron and said he was the dad in the movie, not the bad guy.  You then informed me it was still okay because you had a weird crush on Mary Kate Schellhardt.  You also said its okay for you to get a hard-on for her in the movie because you loved her as a teenager and she’s older now so its safe.”

Raymond looked at her wide-eyed in disbelief, “how in fucking hell do you remember all of this?!  What is wrong with you that you have this sitting in your memory banks to throw back at me?”

Evelyn growled and stomped her foot, her eyes opened wide like she was trying to cast a spell to make his head burst into flames.

Raymond continued, “look, I’m sorry.  I don’t recall this, other than the Michael Madsen thing.  I thought I returned it.  I’m sure I did.”

“Well you didn’t!  I don’t have $50 I can throw away so you’re paying it.  Here!  Happy Birthday!  I’ll see you later tonight!”  She turned and stomped away in a huff.

Raymond looked at the box of paper and the Blockbuster card and then called out to her, “well, thanks for the unexpected gift I guess?”

She didn’t turn around, but yelled, “PAY IT!”

Then disappeared around a corner.