What happens when the lamp you buy isn't the one you intend to buy?

A story inspired by a sketch with the annotation "girly lamp."

A friend of mine wrote this, he normally doesn't write TG stories, but upon reading this I knew it needed to be shared. It is definitely written tongue in cheek and don't let any of the tags turn you away from this story.

http://paddedquill.deviantart.com/

I knew I should have returned the stupid lamp as soon as I saw that it wasn’t the same one as what was advertised on the box. I should have, but I was lazy and didn’t, and that’s really why things went as far as they did, I suppose. I didn’t think too many people would notice, let alone think anything about it at the time, but man did shit snowball out of control, and fast.

The lamp itself was, well, it was a damn girly lamp. I’d needed it for late night studying in my dorm room, since the overhead florescent lights always gave me a headache during long sessions pouring over the books, and I’d gone out to the local super mart to pick up something. What I got was a gloss white desk lamp with a pale pink lampshade, complete with that little feathery trim stuff around the top and little pink heart charms dangling off. Like I said, I shouldn’t have kept it, but it was late and I did. I only thanked whatever being there was watching that the small school I attend was sparse enough to afford individual dorm rooms.

Y’know, I really did expect a little bit of teasing from the guys on the floor, I’d have been stupid not to. There was a little bit of poking fun here and there, some remarks about the lamp, insinuations about my manhood and all of that, usually pretty good natured, and after about a week of it, I’d pretty much learned to just filter it all out. Boys will be boys, especially in the dog-eat-dog race of manliness that was the first couple of years of college, and it’s not like I’m innocent of some gentle poking and prodding about some of my dorm mate’s habits or choice or shoes or whatever in the past.

But then they started in with the gifts, little things at first, just funny little ‘additions’ to my room to go along with the lamp. The first was the vanity mirror that I’d found sitting on top of my dresser after class one day, and slowly things started to build up from there. By the end of the month I’d somehow gotten a hot pink alarm clock, a three-pack of loufas, a set of purple sheets, a subscription to Teen Beat magazine, and to top it all off, a quite expensive makeup and pedicure/manicure set. Was it ridiculous? Sure it was, but even though people were obviously getting access to my dorm room to leave these little ‘gifts’ I wasn’t concerned. Nothing else had been disturbed when the gifts were left and a little practical joking never hurt anyone.

Now, I don’t really know what I could have done to stop the snowballing of this whole situation, and I ask myself nearly every day if anything would have changed the course of it all. Maybe if I’d just thrown it all out they’d have gotten the point, but I was afraid at the time that it would just escalate. So instead, anytime something new showed up at my place, I’d just chuck it in a drawer with all the rest of the mess. And that worked, for like a day, but then each new gift would bring all the rest of the stuff back from its hiding place and right back on the dresser or night stand or wherever someone decided to put it. Yeah, I eventually gave up putting it away.

Yeah, maybe I should have tossed it all, it’s just I wasn’t worried about it until the day other things started disappearing from my room. It started small, again, like my normal alarm clock vanishing, my iPhone case being replaced with a bejeweled monstrosity, even my tooth brush was swapped out for a pink one with sparkles in the handle. You know, little things like that, no harm no foul sort of stuff. I didn’t bother to replace most of it, thinking that if I went along with this sort of junk that people would stop finding it funny. Man was I wrong.

I had a feeling that things were getting a little bit too far the day I came back from class and all of my furniture was gone. I complained to the RA that it’d gone way over the top, and he promised to look into what had happened, but I should be happy they’d left me something to use, and until my old stuff was found, I’d have to make do. Right, I bet he never had to make do with a wrought iron canopy bed with Disney Princesses sheets, or having your desk replaced with a makeup stand, complete with a little pink lacey stool for a seat. Hell, they’d even gone so far as to replace my dresser with one covered in little flowery enamel paintings. This joke was costing someone a lot of money, apparently.

And of course, my furniture hadn’t been found anywhere, and no one came forward to claim responsibility for the act. Every time I brought it up with the dorm manager I got the same old line about new furniture being on order, and I should just sit tight. Easy for him to say, since he hadn’t had his dorm room transformed into a teenaged girl’s paradise, but I guess I should have been grateful at the time, since after the redecoration project, the gifts and jibes sort of slacked off. I thought maybe things had hit their peak and were going to soon be forgotten.

Well, that was until the day a month later I got done showering only to find someone had thought it’d be hilarious to replace all of my underwear with a quite broad variety of panties. Okay, so maybe I was a little pissed off and it wasn’t the best idea to go storming through the dorm halls looking for the RA with nothing but a towel around my waist, but who wouldn’t? Still, I thought it was a bit unfair that I got the reprimand, and another assurance that they were looking into matters and to just calm down. Forget that noise, this had to end, and looking back it’s clear that the RA was in on the whole prank.

But I didn’t know that at the time, so all I could do was seethe and go commando for the first couple of classes of the day. That afternoon I had gone out to buy myself a new set of briefs to replace the ones that had gone missing, tossing all of the panties, of which there were many, into the bag I’d brought my new undies in. I tossed that in the garbage on my way to the last class of the day, making damn sure to lock my dorm room door when I left. I swore up and down that if anything else happened, I’d complain to the school’s board about it. Not only was this costing me reputation, but now it was costing me real money.

Returning back from that last class, however, I found my door had been unlocked and was cracked slightly open. Dreading what I’d find when I entered, I stepped inside. Much to my frustration, the dresser drawer I’d put my underwear in was open, all of my fresh tighty-whities having vanished, replaced with the same assortment of panties from before. Sitting atop the dresser was a little note, printed in neat calligraphy with my name on it. Inside, it said simply

The other drawers were open as well, as well as my closet, and a quick survey of the contents made my heart sink and my temper flare. Every single last article of my clothing was gone, replaced with some sort of female equivalent. T-shirts were baby-doll tees, shorts were now mini-skirts, button down dress shirts were blouses. Even my jeans had been replaced with effeminate skinny jeans, and all of my dress pants were converted into an assortment of long pleated skirts. This was absolutely the last and final straw, the one that was breaking this camel’s back. I hit back out to the store and purchased a couple of new outfits, not much, since I was, am, a broke college student, but enough to last me until I could get a hearing with the school board.

Despite how well I thought I’d hidden my secret stash of gender appropriate clothing, it too soon went missing from my room. On top of that, the board had agreed to hear me out, but it was going to be another couple of weeks before the hearing. The public hearing. Meaning I had to spend the next two weeks wearing girl’s clothes to all of my classes. The teasing was nearly unbearable, but I tried to keep a positive outlook. Whoever was responsible for all of this would soon be kicked out of school, and I’d be able to get back to my normal, skirts-free life.

Even so, those two weeks weren’t all bad. Between the fake cat-calls from the guys, I managed to get in good with some of the girls on campus, though most of them wanted to trade makeup and hair tips, a few gave me their numbers. I didn’t dare even think of asking them out on dates until I could get this whole prank mess straightened out, but at least there were prospects. I really should have taken them up on the offer sooner rather than trying to wait for later. It would have been nice to have gotten out of my panties and into some of these girl’s, but my confidence had taken a hit, you understand, and I wasn’t in the best of moods to be asking people out on dates when the best clothes I had to go out on the town in were probably from the same department as my date’s.

I should have known something was up the morning of the hearing, since the hall was dead quiet when I got up to take my shower. Usually there was someone loitering about, or other guys in the shower room or something, but that morning it was dead. Not that I was paying too much attention at the time, eager to have this mess over with as I was, but the little note sitting atop a pile of cloth on my bed when I got back from my shower made my breath seize in my chest.

It was that same careful calligraphy as the other note had been, and I quickly tossed it aside and picked up the pile that had been left for me. I rushed to my dresser and closet, and sure enough they’d been emptied out completely, not even a scrap of clothing for me to wear other than what was sitting on the floor next to the bed. I tried to call the board’s office to let them know that I needed to re-schedule due to extenuating circumstances, but was sternly told that today was the day, take it or leave it, and I’d only get the one chance to air my grievances unless I could prove a medical emergency or a death in the family.

So that’s how I ended up standing before the school’s board of directors and half the school, it seemed, wearing a little girl’s frilly tea party dress and a pair of disposable training pants. I was a laughing stock, not only with the students, but I could tell that most of the board was trying their hardest not to crack up as well. Trembling with humiliation and rage, I tried to make my case, but they were hearing none of it. Half the board was busy laughing, and the other half thought I was mocking their school’s due process by coming to them dressed as I was. Being told to ‘grow up’ and ‘stop wasting the school’s time’ was, apparently, my breaking point.

As I walked out of the auditorium hall, head hung in defeat, I suddenly found myself surrounded by my dorm floor’s other inhabitants, patting me on the back and telling me how cool I was for ‘being so brave’ and ‘such a good sport’. I tried to pull away from them, but my RA caught me by the hem of the ridiculous dress and pulled me back, patting my protected rear and assuring me that things were over. My spirits started to pick back up when he told me that they’d finally gotten my furniture in and it was being set up in the room as we spoke, and should be done by the time we got back to the dorms, along with all my clothes and other stuff.

Damn me for not being more skeptical, even after all of this mess had happened to me. I should have seen it coming, the smiling faces, the too eager apologies; all of it was totally fake. My life since that afternoon had been downhill from there, but being told off like I was by the school’s board of directors once already, I didn’t have much choice but to give in, or leave the school, and with my future at stake if I left, not even I thought that was even an option. Besides, they were still letting me go to class and get my grades, at least.

So that’s where I am. I don’t know why I’m telling myself all of this, I was there, but I suppose I’m trying to get my head right. These pink crib bars aren’t going to talk back, that’s for sure, and the only other sound in my room is the soft rustle as my satin nighty brushes over the diaper I’ve been put in for the night. The mobile ran out of ‘wind’ a little while ago, so now it’s just me here with my thoughts. The last month and a half have sort of been a blur. I fought at first, but with so many of them and only one little old me; there wasn’t much of a fight. At least they hadn’t made me wear the diapers during the day, just the training panties, but the RA had said something about making sure I was properly protected in case I got too excited tomorrow, so I’m worried.

It’s parents day tomorrow, you see, and I guess I’m just trying to figure out how best to explain to mom and dad why their college son is dressed up like a nursery school girl.

Fucking girly lamp.