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Where Do I Go?

As the days of COVID-19 are dragging on, we are having to make more adjustments to our usual routines. Some of these changes are so mundane that I haven't mentioned them at all in this blog, while others have lead to some pretty funny anecdotes. That's probably par for the course, since you wouldn't expect a global pandemic to be all giggles. As it turns out, however, not all of the anecdotes happen to us directly. Having to socially distance and remotely do things has actually led to at least one goofy episode that we found out from afar.

You see, it was our niece's birthday recently, but we couldn't visit her because of the aforementioned social distancing. So, we figured we'd ship her a present and call her on her birthday. We couldn't be there in person, but we could still wish her well and try to make her feel special on her birthday. Given that shipping times have been erratic the last few months, we ordered the present with plenty of time, and it arrived a couple of weeks in advance. So, that worked out as planned.

The one bit that didn't work so well, however, were the balloons that we sent. Again, we wanted to try to make her feel special, so we ordered some balloons and had them sent to our niece. The company provided a delivery window during which they said they would make sure the balloons would arrive, so we passed this info along to our niece's parents (read: my sister and her husband).

Well, the driver who needed to deliver those balloons was running late, so the balloons didn't arrive within the window. That actually worked out in our favor, because my sister and her husband were running late from running errands. So, the extra minutes helped to ensure that they were home when the delivery would eventually arrive.

It was obviously important that they be home to receive their package, but it would turn out to be doubly relevant because my sister and her husband were having some work done on their house. You see, the usual front door entrance is through a deck that leads to the living room. That deck, however, was under construction at the time of the delivery, so a very confused driver called us to ask where the heck he should go in order to deliver the balloons. I was actually on the phone with him as he was walking up to the house, and he sounded very confused as to what should happen next.

Fortunately, I heard some other voices in the background, and the driver said that everything was good a few seconds later, so I figured he had navigated the deck successfully. As my sister would later tell me, though, my brother-in-law had been in the garage at the time when the driver pulled up. So, he opened the garage door and asked him what was going on. This was apparently the voice I had heard in the background, and it had been enough to confuse the driver as a stranger from the garage was now directing him away from the front door. I apparently missed out on quite the look on this guy's face since I was on the phone, but it was enough to make the other adults present chuckle quite a bit.

In the end, the balloons were delivered safely and there were no real shenanigans to report, but the whole process had led to a few very amused glances. I am happy to report that my niece appreciated the balloons, and she kept trying to grab at them so she could play with them. As a result, I'm going to call the whole thing a success, delivery mazes aside.
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