The Decompression of a Boomer

This event happened on January 6th.  I’m thinking I could fill a category on my blog with “stupid events” which seem to be occurring with increased regularity.

Our son was flying home again after spending Christmas with us. His suitcase was overflowing and  I offered to ship his extra stuff to him. Right after he left I found the perfect box in the basement and  arranged his things in it just  so … a hardback book, a flashlight,  fleece jacket.  I drove the four blocks to the UPS store and  shipped the package, proud that I had gotten it off  so quickly.   I e-mailed our son, “Your package is due to arrive by Friday.  Love, Mom.”    I knew he would be needing his fleece.

The very next day  a UPS truck arrived in  front of our house with a good sized package.  I looked out and wondered, was it a late Christmas package?

The doorbell rang and our dog  went berserk with barking.  I held the dog while opening the door and dragged the package inside with my right foot.  It was quite heavy, from a printing company, I noticed.  Ink cartridges?

“Did you order ink cartridges?” I asked my husband when he arrived home from work.  “No.” he replied.  “Well, yes, I did. We got them a few weeks ago.”

He slit open the box and out popped a flashlight, hardback book, stuff that was … our son’s.  “What the heck?”  My husband flipped the package over. On the bottom  was our son’s address.  On the top was our address.  It was the same box we had received several weeks ago from the printing company.  It had contained ink cartridges.

“If you’re gonna reuse boxes for shipping …,” my husband began.  “I know!”  I cut him off, perturbed.  “I mail packages all the time!”

The next day I returned to the UPS store with my son’s package.  I explained about how it was supposed to go 2200 miles but only went four blocks.  Well, by now it had traveled  twelve blocks, when you added up the three trips to and from the UPS store from our house.

Our son’s  package has shipped again.  It  is due to arrive at his apartment next Monday.  In the meantime,  I’ll be highly suspicious of any UPS truck pulling up in front of our house.

This entry was posted on January 8, 2009 at 12:07 am and is filed under Empty Nest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.