I got two enormous packages today. I knew they were coming, and I had fair warning of their 95lbs cumulative weight, but I hadn’t concerned myself with the logistics of getting them from street level down a flight of stairs to my garden apartment. Some bridges you just have to cross when you get to them.
My building has those obnoxious door bell/intercom buttons that many apartment buildings boast: rectangular, awkwardly bevelled, and closely packed. I say obnoxious because nobody can ever manage to just press the button they want, and since my intercom is partly broken and doesn’t allow for verbal communication, a mis-press involves me sprinting up the afore-mentioned stairs and being confronted by complete strangers looking at me confusedly, even though they’re the reason for our awkward encounter.
Fortunately, this worked in my favor today, when the UPS employee rang my unit and that of my upstairs neighbor. By the time I had scaled the stairs, my boxes were being laboriously shoved into the first floor apartment. We sorted out that they were addressed to me, and my neighbor (who happens to be shorter and–by appearances only–less spry than me) immediately insisted on helping me carry them downstairs. Rather than taking the outside stairs, (since it was raining), we walked through her apartment to the stairs leading to the laundry room (which my apartment abuts) , and lug-dragged them on down. That was so nice of her. And that’s what this blog is all about: other people reaching out to me, and thereby inspiring me to reach out to others. Turns out the best present I got today didn’t come in a box at all.
You might also like . . .
