I was in the University Center today, waiting for my dear girlfriend to arrive for lunch, when I suddenly found that I was holding in my hands a medium-sized box of thin cardboard. I looked up to see a middle-aged man, already a good twenty feet away, with an armful of similar boxes, looking for another student to ambush, so I could only assume I had received it from him.

Having blinked and thus missed my opportunity to decline the gift, I examined the box in my hands. It was orange and red, with lowercase letters, because, as we all know, uppercase letters are uncool. "campus trial pak", said the box. "for him".

"For him?" said I. "This is going to have condoms in it, isn't it?"

Well, no. But here's what it did have:

• An envelope advertising some kind of free collect calling scam, as pitched by this sketchy anime-looking guy (girl?) with multi-colored hair. Inside were "Special Student Offers!", which were almost exclusively for magazine subscriptions. I didn't give these a second glance - ever since some girl hawking magazine subscriptions came into my dorm room freshman year and wouldn't leave until I bought one or physically pushed her out the door, I've been wary of magazines in general.

• A dose of Imodium A-D, and a coupon for same. Now this is a useful sample, although I don't know why Imodium feels the need to fight for mindshare by distributing samples. Name another anti-diarrheal medicine. Hm? Thought so.

• Mambo: a new fragrance for men. There's a very specific kind of guy who wears cologne, and I'm not it. And the smell of cologne always reminds me of those guys.

• A bar of new Zest: Rainforest Falls. Who am I to turn down free soap?

• A small stick of Old Spice High Endurance Red Zone deodorant. I tend to shy away from rub-on deodorant as I find it both gross and less effective than spray, and almost useless in an emergency.

• NyQuil and DayQuil. Aha! The twin gods of cold relief. DayQuil rules the day, her bright orange plumage reflecting the amber beams of sunlight, whilst NyQuil broods at night, somber and translucent, his charms dragging many a weary traveller into sleep.

• Jolly Ranchers. Now this is what I'm talking about. Jenn and I ate these immediately. And since I hadn't eaten or really thought about Jolly Ranchers since high school, the free sample achieved its desired effect of making me think about, and perhaps one day buy, the product.

So, a note to anyone preparing campus trial paks: less magazine, more candy.