(wince)

So, there's a pot luck dinner tonight on our floor. All around the apartments are bustling with culinary activity, no doubt pots boiling, frying pans sizzling, hand mixers whipping, etc. Not ten minutes ago, our nicer than nice neighbor came over to ask, "Hey, can we borrow some vanilla extract?"

"Sure!" I say. "Come on in!"

I invite him into our lacking-in-spaciousness entryway and swoop around the counter to grab the imitation version of the stuff he wanted and hand it to him, giving him some disclaimer that it's "not the real thing, but works okay." He thanks me and promises to bring it right back, and makes a swift exit.

It wasn't until the door closed behind him that I realized what I had left on the counter, front and center in his field of vision from the moment he set foot into our humble abode.

(awkward silence)

I'm not a proponent of karma.

But I'm pretty sure that this is some cosmic form of payback for NOT sending this book back to my GENEROUS gal pal who loaned it to me last year, and for naively claiming for the last 8 months that "if I keep it by the entryway, I'll remember to ship it back on my way to work."

I grabbed the book and hid it underneath a sofa cushion.

When that vanilla extract gets dropped off, hopefully our neighbor will think he just imagined that book-- that retina-burning awkwardness-inducing book that those Reynoldsies next door like to keep in their entryway.