Tumbling through the Neon Wasteland

Why my homesick friend deserves nothing more than a box full of tuna fish…
He wouldn’t appreciate it, but for some reason this prompt reminded me of a prank a couple of my closest friends played on me during our junior year of college. So I’m going to pretend that the friend in question in this case, spending his six homesick months abroad, is a member of this small group of college buddies. And I’m going to tell you the story… It was the middle of October, approaching Halloween, and I returned from class one day to find a package waiting for me. It was from my aunt in Connecticut, and I was immediately curious because I didn’t often receive packages or gifts from this particular relative. It wasn’t close to my birthday, so I assumed it must have something to do with Halloween. It didn’t occur to me to examine the box, or maybe I would have noticed the telltale signs of a surreptitious unwrap-rewrap job, such as duct tape laying on top of actual packing tape (I noticed this later, of course). I was just excited to see what she had sent, so I dove right in. Now, two of my friends (one of whom was my roommate) were nonchalantly hanging out in our apartment at the time, and they seemed a bit too curious about this package. Both watched intently as I opened the box. As I removed the tissue paper on top of the contents, I saw rows of Starkist tuna fish cans interspersed with boxes of Jello lining the box two levels deep, with a note resting on top of everything. I opened the note, barely noticing that my friends seemed even more intent on the scene playing out before them, as a wave of embarrassment began to sweep over me. The note was full of happy sentiments regarding Halloween and college in general; my aunt hoped I was having a good semester, that I was studying hard, you get the idea. And throughout the note, she kept referring to the “tuna and jello” she had sent. She really hoped I liked the “tuna and jello.” God. My immediate reaction was to start mentally backpedaling in front of my friends. My initial embarrassment had worsened, and instead of noticing that every time the words “tuna and jello” appeared in the note, they were written in a different ink above two other words that had been crossed out, I began a long and convoluted defense of “my crazy aunt in Connecticut.” I eloquently defended my undying love for tuna and jello, assuring my friends that my aunt knew how much I liked both foods, and that in our family it was tantamount to a Halloween tradition to gift them to other family members around the holiday. After several more embarrassing minutes of similar ridiculousness, my friends could no longer contain themselves, and they both burst into laughter. Two of my other friends emerged from one of the bedrooms. It was then that I noticed the remains of a cookie or two on the coffee table, cookies that appeared to have been not only homemade, but chocolate with little jack o’lantern faces made of orange icing. Okayyyy…… So, my friends had opened the box while I was at class, eaten ALL of the cookies, taken my aunt’s note, crossed out every instance of “Halloween cookies,” and written “tuna and jello” in their place. And to make matters worse, I hadn’t even recognized the damned tuna and jello, which had been resting happily in our nearly empty poor-college-student kitchen that morning as I had departed for class. The moral of this story? Don’t turn your back on your “friends.” Nah… It was all in good fun. I suppose the real moral is to simply keep your damn eyes open. But in the context of this question? My friend would get a box full of tuna fish cans, no more and no less. ‘Cause that’s what he would deserve;-)