Doing the Right Thing Can Be A Hassle, Yet Rewarding

Being Good Can Take Some Time

Sometimes doing the right thing can take some time out of your day and contribute to stress.  This is especially true when it is a stressful time of year.  For those of you who celebrate gift giving holidays in December, it can be a stressful, but also fun time.  There are a lot of festive events, but that is coupled with the practical and financial challenges of getting and wrapping gifts, traveling, or hosting a holiday event.

Each year around the holidays something strange happens that adds to my holiday stress.  For some reason, there is a particular shipping company that starts to deliver other people’s holiday packages to our house.  I am not sure if it is some sort of holiday magic, but it only happens in December.  I have always wondered why.  We do order a lot of gifts online.  Maybe other people’s packages get mixed in with ours.  Perhaps the trucks run out of gas at our house.

The delivery of stray packages does present some problems for my family. Finding the appropriate time to deliver someone’s package is always a problem.  Unfortunately, my neighborhood is not a very friendly one.  It is not a good idea to knock on a neighbor’s door after dark because people may greet you suspiciously.  At this time of year, I rarely get home from work before it gets dark.  Also, I am not really sure if it is my job to verify that I am delivering the package to the correct person. Especially since it was not my job to deliver a package in the first place.

Up until now, the owners of these packages have lived near our home.  The first time that it happened, we did not really realize that the package was not ours.  We just carried it into the house where it stayed there for a few days.When we realized that it belonged to our neighbors five doors down, I walked down there to give it to them.  My neighbors were surprised by my presence.  They had lived in the house for about a year, but we had never met.  They were kind of puzzled when I asked if their name matched the name on the package.  When they got over their surprise, they were actually shocked that I had brought the package to them.  They had assumed that it had been stolen when it did not turn up.  It makes me wonder what was in it!

They were so grateful that I had returned to them what was rightfully their property.  In fact, they were so grateful that they brought us chocolate.  So, my child and I walked down to thank them for the chocolate a few days later and to deliver the second package, which had also been delivered to our house by mistake.

This year the package delivered to our house does not belong to people in our neighborhood, but somewhere else in our ZIP code.  Which means we would have to drive somewhere unfamiliar to deliver it.  Instead of doing this, I have tried to contact the shipping company and the store from which it was ordered so that they can retrieve it and properly deliver it.  In the five days that the package has been sitting here, I have spent about an hour talking to the people at the shipping company and the department store about it on the phone.  These conversations have been odd.  They ask me questions like “What is the order number?” and “What is in the box?”  I have few answers for them because I have not opened it.  Both companies assured me that someone will give us a call to retrieve it in 7 to 10 business days.  So far, we have not been contacted by either.  The unopened box is still in my kitchen.

What I have learned from this is that sometimes doing something good requires some effort when you least expect it.  But when you do a good thing, it can be rewarding.  Last year we met some people as a result of the shipping company’s error.

I predict that this year we will again do what the shipping company and department store are unable to do–deliver this year’s package to it’s rightful owner.  We will probably have some time to deliver it on Sunday during daylight hours, if it is still here.  Hopefully our experience will be as good as last year.