EWING ­­— When sign-toting evangelicals staked out The College of New Jersey's quad this fall, preaching the evils of premarital sex, sophomore Kyle McCabe and his friends donned Batman suits and staged a counterprotest.

The story caused a minor stir on the internet and turned McCabe into something of a campus celebrity.

Now the 19-year-old McCabe has made national news as the brainchild behind CondAm, a condom delivery service for TCNJ students.

Students can order condoms online, by phone or via text 24 hours a day. During “express hours” — 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — McCabe promises to deliver in five minutes or less.

“When I get a delivery, I’ll drop whatever I’m doing,” McCabe said. “I sprint.”

CondAm, short for Condom Ambulance, caught on slowly when he started it in October, he said. McCabe saw a trickle of customers during his first month as TCNJ’s unofficial condom delivery man.

He saw a bump in business after he hung up flyers, during homecoming and after CondAm was profiled in the campus newspaper two months ago.

Then, last week, ABC News featured an article about CondAm on its website. Within days the story was picked up by The Huffington Post, Playboy’s satellite radio station and WGN-TV Chicago.

McCabe soon realized that his idea had the potential to spread beyond TCNJ.

“There’s nothing like this out there,” McCabe said.

Looking to expand

Amid the rush of national media attention, McCabe applied for incorporation, which he said will protect him from liability and perhaps allow him to expand to Rutgers University and other nearby colleges.

Not bad for an idea born of a half-joking conversation with friends, he said.

“My friends and I were sitting around and talking about stuff — sex, what else? — and the all-too-common occurrence of not being prepared came up,” McCabe said. “I was saying it would be awesome if someone just showed up at those moments, gave you condoms and disappeared into the night.”

While condom delivery is new to TCNJ, it is not an original idea. A 1987 Doonesbury comic lampooned the concept through a series of strips devoted to intrepid delivery man Dr. Whoopee. A few years later, the Los Angeles Times profiled a real-life condom delivery person who called himself “Cupid.” And St. Mary’s College of Maryland has the Condom Fairy, CondAm by a different name.

Nonetheless, many students say the service is needed at TCNJ.

“It definitely fills a need on campus,” said sophomore Gerard Tyrrell of New Residence Hall. “It’s a creative service for a student to come up with.”

Across campus in first-year dormitory Wolfe Hall, freshman Liz Rozansky agreed.

“It’s a good idea,” Rozansky said. After a pause, she added, “I don’t know if people actually use it.”

McCabe said he has been filling about 10 orders a night, and was looking forward to seeing whether business would improve over the first weekend since CondAm received national media attention.

About 60 percent of his orders come from men, 40 percent from women, he said. He estimates a similar breakdown for upperclassmen versus. underclassmen, with juniors and seniors ordering more often.

“It’s a lot of freshmen, but more upperclassmen,” McCabe said. “Usually the worst days are the best days for business. I go out a lot when it rains.”

Speedy service

McCabe said he wears running shoes during express hours. When he receives an order, he dashes from his dorm with condoms and a release form he asks customers to sign.

In a test last week of his five-minute guarantee, McCabe made it from the third floor of his centrally located dormitory, New Residence Hall, to the 10th floor of Wolfe Hall in two minutes flat. The trip would take about eight minutes at a walk.

Once he arrives at a dorm, McCabe either delivers right to the door or asks students to come downstairs to meet him. Visitors must be signed in to residence halls from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekends, so McCabe conducts his condom sales in the lobby during those hours.

According to his online order form at condam.net, a single Trojan condom would cost $3, or $15 for a pack of 10 — somewhat more expensive than common pharmacy or convenience-store prices.

McCabe said he hopes TCNJ will eventually give him permission to bypass the sign-in process when he is on official business.

It will be easy to tell when he is working, he said, as he recently purchased a helmet he plans to wear during deliveries.

“It has CondAm logo stickers on it and a blue police light on top. It’s sort of a novelty,” McCabe said. “I want to have that idea that we take ourselves too seriously. It’s kind of comedic.”

Blending humor and concern for issues is how McCabe operates.

Just as when he dressed up as Batman to protest the preachers’ fiery rhetoric, he is using a seemingly silly idea, CondAm, to fight something he sees as a real problem: young people having unprotected sex.

“A lot of times, people will just go through with it if they don’t have a condom,” McCabe said. “This way, they don’t have to.”

McCabe said he hopes to use CondAm to advocate sexual health during the evangelicals’ next visit.

“I want to have a CondAm booth outside the student center and donate money to Planned Parenthood for every hour they’re there,” McCabe said.

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