I Needed to Deliver a Package

After a day marked by anxiety which I couldn’t quite pinpoint as job-related or should-I-or-shouldn’t-I-make-a-mix-CD-for-a-girl-related, I was just happy to be home. Alas, my work was not yet done.

I picked up a small package inside the vestibule of my apartment building. It was not for me or, for that matter, for any of the other residents of 423 Adams Street. No, it was for Erin of 421 Adams, who I am not familiar with. The package had been sitting atop our baseboard heater; I hoped the contents hadn’t been damaged.

Hmm, in the past I’ve successfully notified people of misdelivered mail by finding them on Facebook. But it was a reasonable hour and I still had my coat on (not to mention my pants, secured by a new belt I’d obtained just yesterday). So I figured I could pop next door and ring Erin’s bell.

I didn’t have a lot of time to develop a fantasy of how this might play out, but I did plan to introduce myself, and maybe she was new to the neighborhood, and, and… that’s really as far as I got.

For I stepped toward the front door of 421 Adams at the exact moment as a young couple did the same.

“This is for…Erin,” I said to them.

“That’s you!” replied the generic clod boyfriend of half the women in the tri-state area.

“It came to 423…” I trailed off.

“That’s so niiiiiiiiice,” beamed the petite young Patti-LuPone-type.

And I came home and fashioned my new belt into a noose. No, no, no, there’s two-day-old pizza to heat up, and a weekend of thrills ahead. TGIF, my friends.