“Britney… Britney Fitzgerald?”

I didn’t want to turn around. There was an unfortunate feeling in my stomach, reminding me of a possible miscommunication that was now coming back to haunt me. I sat at my desk, frozen to the keyboard, and managed to squeak out a, “Yes?”

Let’s backtrack. I was doing a “product roundup” for some of the editors at Martha Stewart Living, looking for the most highly reviewed sleds of the season. Clicking around the internet, I stumbled upon Mountain Boy sleds. The majority of buyers enjoyed the product, so I added it to my list.

Taking a closer look at the website, I saw that many of the sleds had “low in stock” alerts next to their descriptions. I found a contact email and asked about the quantity left for buyers. I said something along the lines of “Hi…my name…im the intern at…saw your product…liked it…but I saw your low in stock…wondering how many are left for the readers… let me know numbers…thanks…”

Because what’s the point in including a product if there aren’t any left to buy?

A day later, I received a response. All it said was something about shipping, and to have a great day. I showed my boss, and we both shrugged off the email. There had been no real answer to my question but… I included the sleds anyway.

Flash forward.

“You’re Britney, right?” the mailman said to me. I hesitantly looked over my shoulder with a Gilly-like smile and responded with an "uh-huh." Behind him was a huge rolling rack, with 56 pounds of sleds I was required to sign for, as they had been addressed to me—Britney Fitzgerald, Editorial Intern, Martha Stewart Living. This was oh so discretely plastered all over the merchandise.

There are two long rows of approximately 16 people lined up, with large Mac computers in my department. Most of the time, the intern’s job is to lie low, observe the environment, and assist in any way possible without too many questions. At the moment, the intern is entertainment. She is also slightly embarrassed as 24 eyes turn to see what she could have possibly ordered that required a rolling rack and 3 brown boxes the size of her apartment.

Yes. The sleds were not only over $130 each; they were additionally quite HUGE.

“Well, just put them in the Free Box,” my boss said. I assumed she meant next to the Free Box, since the sleds and toboggan would have actually smashed and killed the Free Box had I placed them inside the laptop-sized container.

Lucky, several parents had taken the sleds by the end of the day, and it snowed that evening, giving kids a guaranteed ideal sledding experience.

Majority of embarrassment = somewhat avoided.

My face when the packages arrived = priceless.