CURBSIDE ETIQUETTE

Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess



Below you will find links to dates when new entries are added. The stories will not necessarily be in chronological order, but rather as I remember them. I am dating them so that you can skip to new ones you haven't read since the last time you visited, and so that you are more easily able to find something you found humorous to share with others.
Abducted


Call it "kharma" or "getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Call it "what comes around, goes around," or call it "Just having a bad day."

Doesn't it seem that if something goes wrong early in your day, many other things seem to be against you throughout the day? One of my dad's favorite comedians, Buddy Hackett, had a saying that my family embraced: "I hate it when the inanimate objects win." Motivational speakers will condemn you for not keeping a positive attitude, saying "A negative attitude breeds more nagativity." Sometimes, it's just Murphy's Law.

A few days back, I had one of those losing days. It seems like, if I miss the newspaper tube with one paper, the next fifty bounce back out and end up on the ground. There must be an unwritten rule somewhere. Windy days are the worst; the wind blows the paper away before you can even get the car in reverse, much less lean out, trying to keep your foot on the brake and your hand on the wheel, and grab the paper to pull it back into the car before it blows away, or before I fall out. I think I spent more time in reverse that morning than forward. I began to have thoughts of conspiracy. Several of the papers I bagged and tossed slid out of the bag. If it wasn't bad enough they weren't staying in the tubes, they wouldn't even stay in the bags, for crying out loud! One particular place has given me grief in the past - if it rains in London, these people call the office complaining of a wet paper. There are places I know that the customer is secretly watching out the window, and the second my truck drives out of sight, they dart out into the driveway, scoop up the paper before anyone steals it, and sprint back into the house. With those few folks, I don't get too concerned, I leave the papers scattered out of the bag knowing they'll be gathered up shortly. But, before I interrupted myself, the paper skittered out at this one house, and under my breath, I complained about having to get out of the truck to gather it up.
I stopped and pulled the emergency brake, which doesn't work well, so I give it two extra small tugs, just to be on the safe side. Then, I remove the bagged papers from my lap (that were in preparation for upcoming driveways), and set them aside on the stack of papers on my passenger seat. I always have a bagged paper or two between my thigh and the stack of papers between the seats (remember, we have seven different papers to keep separate), and set those on top of the stacks already on the dashboard. Slowly I release the brake pedal to see if the truck is going to roll away. (I do not have "park", I drive a five speed, which by some guidelines, is crazy, considering I drive, fold, bag, shift, and often times, eat or drink while on the job.) After I re-position the paper inside the bag, I get back in and start putting things back in place inside the Mobile Office. "No big deal" you say. It's not a big deal once, or even twice. But as I said above, it's usually "one of those nights" and it happens over and over again.
At this particular house, I got out to slide the paper back together, and in the dark, I saw a dark spot on the top of the paper. I figured it was a piece of bark or something like that, and chose to leave it inside the paper, wondering what kind of fantastic complaint I'd get tomorrow about THIS one. But as I started to slide the papers back into the bag, the dark spot leaped away ... and so did I. I must have jumped three feet when the small back toad made its escape!

I can imagine the poor toad sitting around the dinner table that night, trying to make his family believe he really WAS abducted by a green cigar-shaped object, but managed to escape just before some giant alien tried to capture him into the cigar-shape.

Somebody call Ripley's....