Dresser

 Dresser                                                                                                                                         August 2025

Isaac found an impressive-looking, modern-style five-drawer dresser online on Amazon. It looked perfect, exactly what he was looking for to organize his underwear, socks, and T-shirts. He paid for it, and a few days later, a huge, heavy box arrived on their doorstep. After spending half an hour unpacking the heavy box, he realized the nightmare, he was going to through to build the dresser. The box was filled with hundreds of pieces of compressed wood with dark, rusty veneer, thousands of screws, dowels, washers, and bolts, and a poorly printed, tiny, wordless instruction booklet with microscopic pictures.

“Oh, crap. What did I get myself into now?” he wondered.

It was now too late to return the exploded beast with all the guts spreading on the floor. He laid everything out and started to assemble, faithfully adhering to the instructions as he could not afford to mess up this project. Hours went by, and he was making no progress. At one point, he realized some of the parts didn't line up at all—the holes seemed to be in the wrong places and the assembly was getting heavier by the minute. He spent even more time trying to figure out a new way to get the pieces to fit together with no success. Sure enough, the whole half-built dresser suddenly collapsed on top of him, missing his head by inches. Now he was too ticked off to continue this doomed project. He saw no way forward but to get rid of it, to return it.

That's when the real nightmare began. The seller's return policy promised "free returns," but they refused to accept them. They told him he must have done something wrong and that he had to put all the pieces back in the box himself and ship it back at his own expense. It would have cost almost as much as the dresser itself just to pack and ship the damn thing. He spent days trying to dispute the charges with his credit card company, but the seller wouldn't budge. He just kept repeating, "You must have done something wrong."

"I'm tired of this," Isaac said, looking at the mountain of dresser pieces. "I'm not going through this again. These factory-made furniture pieces with a thousand pieces are to be assembled during the manufacturing process by skilled assemblers with the right tools and proper work benches, and not for Amazon customers. I'm too old for this crap."

"So, what's the plan, my dear?" his wife, Ava, asked with a smirk on her face as if she knew this would happen. After years of marriage, he felt the sting of her subtle sarcasm.

"I’m tired of this compressed wood shit. Look at all this wood dust, it looks like a termite colony. The brand-new dresser turned into dust, and that chaps my hide. This is what I am going to do. I’m going to look on Facebook Marketplace for a used one. A classic piece of furniture worthy of our bedroom, one that shines in darkness," he replied. "An already assembled exquisite piece, something already put together."

“You know of course, we have to pay a lot just to haul the dresser and need a couple of movers to move it upstairs, don’t you?” Ava asked.

“We have no choice; you saw what happened here. I cannot go through this charade again.”

Then he found a gorgeous dresser on Facebook. The price was great—only $100 for a classic, well-crafted piece that looked like it would sell for over a thousand. After some back-and-forth with the seller asking the dresser’s dimensions and measuring the back of their SUV, Isaac arranged to pick it up the next weekend.

On Saturday morning, Isaac cleared out the back of their SUV. They drove for an hour to the other side of town. The seller had the dresser waiting in the garage. As Isaac was about to pick it up, he noticed the drawers didn't quite close right. They were catching and sticking. He told himself he could fix it later. He handed over the $100 and he and Ava began the struggle to fit the dresser into the SUV. They had to remove all the drawers just to get the frame to fit. Ava was not a happy wife helping her husband loading the heavy dresser.   

Later that afternoon, the dresser was sitting in their yard, ready to be hauled inside. Isaac opened and closed the drawers again. They were all catching. To move it upstairs to the second floor, he had to take all the drawers out again. With Ava's unsolicited assistance after half an hour of hustling, they finally managed to get the heavy frame up the stairs.

“I did not sign up for this, Issac? Don’t you think asking your wife to move heavy furniture upstairs is a little too much?”

“Sorry, love. I know I asked for too much.”

But his troubles weren't over. As he began putting his clothes inside, he realized that despite his minor adjustments, the drawers were all catching. He had to wrestle with them to open and force them to close. He knew he had bought himself a major headache. He had no choice but to stop cramming his clothes inside and try to fix the drawers, one by one. It took him a few days to figure out the problem. The front of the dresser was curved, and each drawer had a slightly different dimension to fit perfectly. There were no tracks, so he had a lot of work ahead of him.

After a few time consultations with the AI on how to fix the issues, he finally decided the best way to fix the drawers was to replace the old hardware. He went back on Amazon, searching for the right pieces, but when they arrived, he realized they wouldn't fit. The dresser's unique design made it impossible to simply swap out the old parts for the new. The thought of taking the entire thing apart again made him wince. He was determined to make this work. He'd find a way to make the new hardware fit, one drawer at a time.

He started with the first drawer, carefully removing some of the old backing and replacing it with fresh wood panels. It was slow and tedious work. As he began working on the second drawer, he noticed a small, thin envelope taped to the back of the drawer—a place no one would ever see when opening or closing it.

He plucked the envelope and found a piece of paper tucked inside.

"Ava, come here!" Isaac yelled from the bedroom.

Ava rushed into the room. "What's going on?"

Isaac held up the small envelope. "Look, I found something." I hope there's a lot of money in here. After all this trouble, I deserve it."

The couple carefully opened the envelope. Inside was a handwritten letter. The paper was fragile and faded; it was obvious the letter had been there for a long time.

"Okay," Isaac said. "Let's see what it says."

Ava unfolded the fragile paper and began to read aloud. Isaac leaned in, listening intently.  

"Why don't you come and see me for the last time?" Ava read, her voice a whisper. "You know I always loved you. You may not agree with everything that I've done in my life, but those were my personal choices. I have not done anything to you. Please have it in your heart to come and see me. And I have something for you of great importance. I can't go into the details, but let’s meet."

At the very bottom of the page on the right corner, was a series of nonsensical typing characters: jk@F;o89-p

"The letter doesn't have an address on it," Isaac said, looking over Ava's shoulder.

"Well, maybe we can just contact the previous owner of the dresser," Isaac suggested. "It's simple enough. I can send them a message and ask if they know anything about it."

"No, don't," Ava said, shaking her head. "That’s not a good idea. They’re not the type to trust for anything. Remember, they didn't tell us about all the issues with this dresser in their ad. Plus, this letter couldn't be from them. I remember the husband told us they bought it themselves at a garage sale and spent money to fix it. There's no way they would have known about this letter. What do we do? We either have to figure this out ourselves or just let this mystery go, throw this letter away, and forget all about it." Ava reasoned.

"But don't you think it's important for us to know who sent this?" Isaac argued. "It was attached to the back of the drawer. It's very possible the envelope was placed inside the drawer intentionally, and it had fallen out and ended up there by accident, and the intended person never received it. Maybe we should do something about that."

"What do you want me to do?" Ava countered, shaking her head. "I'm not here to solve all the mysteries of life. Someone wrote it, yes, but that was a long time ago. The person who wrote it could be a lover. Or even a parent sending a note to their child? Whoever it was, they're probably dead by now. This note has been sitting here for so many years. The previous owners had no idea it was even here. There's no way we can figure this out."

"I know what we can do," Isaac said, his mind already spinning. "Take a picture of this first. I'm sure there are online sites for lost and found items like this. These characters are the most troubling part of this mystery. There must be something behind this, and we should try to find out what. We don’t lose anything by trying."

Ava did as he suggested. She searched for "lost and found," "mysterious items," and other phrases, looking for a way to get the word out without revealing their identities. She came back a few minutes later. "I found a site that might be able to help us."

"Good," Isaac replied, "but don't identify yourself in any way. And don't reveal too much about the letter, either. We don't know what’s going on; we must be careful. Just say we found a letter, and if the intended recipient is out there, they can contact us through the site. That way, our email addresses will be safe."

Ava did as her husband asked. She posted the message online, then turned to him with a worried look. "Do you think anyone will respond?”  

"I have no idea," Isaac admitted. "But those characters are really spooking me out. I don't understand. Maybe we didn't do the right thing by posting it. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be out there like this. But so far, we’re safe. Let’s see what happens."

The conversation trailed off as the classic dresser with five open mouths was staring at them to see their next move. It was getting late. With the mystery of the letter weighing on their minds, they went to bed.

A few days later, while checking her email, Ava saw a notification from the site. She let out a gasp of excitement. "Isaac, come here! Someone's interested!"

Isaac rushed to her side. "What'd they say?"

"She says the letter was probably meant for her," Ava explained. "She wrote that she never received this letter, meant to be sent to her so many years ago. She's asking us to contact her so we can discuss it, and maybe we can give her the letter back."

"That's fishy," Isaac said, his suspicion rising. "Write her back and ask more questions. What does she think the letter contains? And why should we believe her story? Tell her to give us more details so we can verify her words."

Ava did as he said. She sent a reply, and moments later, she received another notification.

The sender wrote back, "All I know is this letter was meant to carry a message in codes. I know the last few of this string of characters at the end of the letter.” She then correctly listed the last few characters of the nonsensical string.

Ava's eyes widened. She turned to Isaac, holding up the phone. "Hey, she must be the right person! She knew the last few characters on that string. How else would she be able to tell us the characters?"

"Okay," Isaac said, but his paranoia was growing. "We still can't reveal our identity. We don't know what's going on. This could be some Cold War-era spy operation or a conspiracy. This whole story is a true mystery. Believe me, we can't reveal our identity, we cannot expose ourselves."

"Maybe we can send a message back and tell her she's wrong about the characters," Ava said.

Isaac thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, do that. But at the same time, ask some more questions. We need to find out the true nature of her interest in this letter."

"I don’t know what else I can ask if I tell her she’s wrong about the characters. What else can I ask?" Ava questioned.

"You’re right, don’t tell her she’s wrong about the characters, don’t say anything about that at all. Tell her that we don't believe her story. Ask her why she thinks the letter ended up where it did. Where was it supposed to go? Why was it never delivered?" Isaac's voice was low and intense. "Tell her that we need to know why this letter is so important to her, so we can be sure she's the rightful owner. Questions like that will give us more information."

“You know, I’ll do that but I don’t like you putting me in the middle. First moving this heavy dresser upstairs and now trying to solve a puzzle.

Ava did as he instructed. She wrote the message, carefully framing each question. The instant she hit send, her phone chimed.

The response from the sender arrived almost immediately. Ava's hands trembled as she read it to Isaac.

"If this is the letter that I was looking for, believe me, I'm not the only one who's looking for this," the message began. "If you have what I’ve been looking for so long, you'll receive a very handsome reward. But if I don't get to the bottom of this, then a lot of other people would be interested in visiting you. Believe me, they will find you. Now you have a digital footprint. They will find out your IP address, and they will soon get you."

Ava's eyes darted to Isaac's. The tone of the message had shifted from a plea to a threat.

“What the hell is going on…” Isaac’s voice rattled.

"If they get to you before I do, I promise you that you will not receive any reward for having your hand on this letter, and you will pay a huge price. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“I don’t think I should reply to her message,” Ava said, terrified.

“How could someone be so interested in this letter?” Issac uttered.

“You will pay with your life," she read, her voice barely a whisper. "So I ask you one more time, please. Let's meet. Let me look at this letter. That's all I'm asking you. Or maybe you can even take an image of this and send it to me. If this letter is what I think it is, it will change so many lives, not only yours or mine. I ask you to please let me see the letter. Let me see that image of this letter."

"Oh, crap," Ava said, her voice filled with a mix of fear and anger. "What kind of stuff have we gotten ourselves involved in?"

She looked up at Isaac, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Wait a minute, wait a goddamn minute," she said, pointing a finger at him. "You come clean, mister. Is this letter another prank you're pulling on me?”

Issac smirked, but his smirk was inundated with fear.

“Is this the payback for the prank I pulled on you at the Rattlesnake Lake?"

"Are you serious, Ava?" Isaac said, his voice rising in disbelief.

“Yes, I think the story you made up about this letter is all a prank.”

"Do you think I created a fake letter and placed it inside the dresser just to pull your leg? To get back at you for making up the entire production of an imaginary stranger in the woods following us and the fake bear attack that ruined our night in the state park for a whole night?” Isaac said.

“Yes, I think this is just a trick. You made up the whole thing.”

“Ava, I don’t think you understand the mess we’re in? This is not a prank. We’ve got ourselves in a mysterious shit that even I don’t know how to get out of. This time I got myself into real trouble, and I don’t mean buying this antique dresser.”

“Tell me what’s going on?” Didn’t you make up this story?”

“Yeah, but not the way you think.”

“Well, tell me how.”

“The envelope and the letter inside, I didn’t make up. I did find the envelope inside the dresser on the back of the drawer. But that’s not all.”

“So, why are you so worried then?”

“Even if I’d made up this letter, how could I have faked those responses from that person? You're the one who posted it online. You saw the replies. I have nothing to do with that part of it, I swear."

Ava's eyes narrowed. "Are you 100% sure you had nothing to do with that letter?" she demanded. "You didn't write it or put it there just to mess with me?"

Isaac sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Ava, I have to come clean. I didn’t write the letter, but those characters, I wrote. I just wrote them down for fun, to make the whole mystery interesting. But honest to God, I have no idea who responded to it. How could I have faked all of this? You're the one who's been handling the communication. You're the one who's seen the messages. I have nothing to do with it, I swear. I don't know why I get myself into this kind of trouble."

“What trouble. We just forget about this altogether, love,” Ava said.

“But those characters I made up meant something, don’t you see?”

"Maybe we should call the cops and tell them what happened? They'll understand, right?"

"But you don't see the nuances, Ava. What if they try to get rid of us to get the letter back? Maybe this letter wasn't supposed to be found. Maybe the letter they were waiting for had a code in it, and they think we've figured it out."

“But you just said you randomly picked some characters and wrote them down to have fun.”

Isaac ran his hands through his hair, his fear mounting. "Don't you see what kind of mess I got us into? I told you to put the note online to look for someone, but I never actually thought anyone would respond. I meant to have fun with you and pull a prank, but now this is out of control."

"So let me see," Ava said, looking at him skeptically. "You just came up with that string of characters totally out of the blue? There was no reasoning behind it?"

Isaac nodded, astounded. "Yeah, yeah, I just came up with them. Just to make the prank work and make it more interesting for you. I had no idea they meant anything to anyone."

Ava looked at Isaac and started to count the characters at the bottom of the letter.     "A mix of numbers, upper and lowercase letters, and special characters. You just picked these characters out of the blue for this prank, didn't you?" ava asked.

Isaac laughed nervously. "I tried to make it as interesting as possible. Just a random combination."

Ava grabbed her laptop and went on a deep dive into an AI platform, researching the probability of a randomly generated string of 10 mixed characters having a specific meaning. After a few minutes, she came back with wide eyes.

"You know what the chances are of that?" she asked.

"No, I don't know," Isaac said, shaking his head.

"For ten mixed characters, the odds are one in 839 billion," she said, almost in a whisper. "How could that possibly be? You picked these specific characters randomly, and they have a very specific coded message for someone, and now they’re after us. Way to go, Isaac.”

Isaac hysterically laughed.

 "Why are you laughing?" Ava asked, her tone serious. "This is not a joke, Isaac. I told you I just did this for fun, but now our lives are in danger."

Just then, something struck Isaac again.

"Oh my God, you did it again, woman!" Isaac's face went from panicked to an almost comical look of disbelief. "There's no interested person in these Goddamn codes! You made it up! You're the one who's interested in them. You're sending these notifications to yourself from a fake email address, aren't you?"

A smirk slowly spread across Ava's face.

"I can't believe I fell for another one of your tricks," Isaac said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "I must be the most gullible person in the world to fall for this crap again. First, you made up that whole story in Rattlesnake Lake and had me acting like an idiot, thinking that a psycho was going to kill us and then a bear was going to bite me in the ass   and now this!"

"Isaac," Ava said, a slight smile on her face. "I got you going good this time, too, didn’t I? I should’ve recorded your reaction and posted it on Facebook.”

“One conniving woman, you are.”

“Maybe you should just keep your mind busy with some mechanical work and stop bothering me with your little tricks. Just focus on your dresser drawers."

She shook her head. "I'm busy learning your language, and I don't want to be annoyed by your petty games, Sir. That's why I pulled this prank on you. So instead of coming up with these not-so-crafty pranks, concentrate on fixing the dresser."

She crossed her arms and looked at the half-finished project. "I didn't sign up for this when I married you. I don't want to be hauling heavy furniture to the second floor." She gestured to the room. "Please just finish this project. Our bedroom looks like a ransacked crime scene."

Isaac stared at her, speechless. The full scope of her elaborate prank finally sank in. He had fallen for it. All he did was to add a little flair to a mysterious letter, then came the suspicious responses, the terrifying threats—it had all been a game orchestrated by his wife, simply to get him for his little attempt to outsmart her. All his panic, all his fears, had been for nothing. He was back where he started, with an old, broken dresser and a lot of work to do.

Isaac turned back to the dresser drawer, staring at the daunting task ahead of him.

“I will get you woman,” he wondered with a mix of feelings of frustration for the dysfunctional beast staring at him and grudging admiration, realizing he'd been completely played again.

"Do you want some ice cream?" Ava asked, breaking the silence.

"Do we have those waffle cones? The dark ones?" he asked.

"Yes, love.”