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Woken up by a door bell.
Get up, check the door thinking it's something I ordered.
Then see that it's a car seat for a baby.
First think, oh that's what Qiao ordered for my niece's baby.
I see a FedEx truck driving away down the street.
Then remember that Qiao ordered a stroller, not a car seat.
Worry that Amazon sent us the wrong item.
Check the label on the package, see that it's addressed to our neighbor, not us.
Oh! I wonder if they got our package instead?
Walk over to neighbor's house for the first time and wonder which door to use.
There's no package of ours by either door.
I choose the front door, as it has a door bell.
They've rung our doorbell before, to bring back our little dog who had dug out of the yard.
We've said hi before.
I may have given them Qiao's phone number, but I don't think we have theirs. Qiao has spoken with them briefly a few times.
Ring the door bell. Wait. Ring door bell again. Wait.
Knock on the outer glass door. Wait.
I see a dog inside through the glass of the doors, eating or drinking or something. It didn't hear me yet.
I knock harder, and the dog hears me, and barks. It jumps up on the door.
Hi there! (Nice doggy!) Tell them someone's at the door!
I can hear kids running around inside.
They've heard the door bell or the knocking or the dog barking by now, I'm sure.
I hear one of the kids say "Don't answer it!"
There are 2 cars outside the house. I'm pretty sure an adult is home.
I keep waiting. Maybe it just takes them a few minutes to get out of bed and dressed, like me.
I knock a few more times, waiting.
Waiting. Kids running around inside.
Waiting.
I decide to send them a message on Nextdoor.com instead. For F*CKS sake.
Sudden irrational anger.
(Remembering the other times I've rung neighbors' doorbells & knocked on doors, waiting in vain for someone to answer. Dammit; people not answering their doors anymore in this day and age.)
I walk back to my house, maybe stomping as much as one can stomp in flip flops.
I bang the top of the package with my fist in passing.
Maybe we should just keep the dang thing.
That'll show them, not answering their frickin doorbell.
Now I'm all riled up; certainly no chance of falling back asleep.
I send them a message on Nextdoor, from Qiao's account.
Any reply they send will go to his email, so I guess it will have to wait until he gets up to see if they've answered.
I start writing this post.
Noonish. Our door bell rings.
It's the neighbor.
I give them their package.
They don't have ours.
Not surprising. It'll probably come later in the day. Hopefully.
I wonder if FedEx will notice their mistake.
Then I remember that I can check for a reply on the Nextdoor.com page too.
They sent a reply before coming over. They didn't hear the door bell; "guess it needs to be fixed".
Great. I still don't have their phone number. I forgot to ask.
I'll ask via Nextdoor.
Half an hour later.
Zorro growls and then barks.
I check the front door.
USPS mail carrier walking back to the mail truck.
(Dithering here over whether or not to use the gendered word "mailman" even though the person looks like a man. But what word would I use for a woman?
Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Say it enough and it will sound natural, I'm sure. Mail carrier. Mail carrier.)
USPS for this delivery, not FedEx.
It's the stroller.
They didn't even ring the door bell this time.
Get up, check the door thinking it's something I ordered.
Then see that it's a car seat for a baby.
First think, oh that's what Qiao ordered for my niece's baby.
I see a FedEx truck driving away down the street.
Then remember that Qiao ordered a stroller, not a car seat.
Worry that Amazon sent us the wrong item.
Check the label on the package, see that it's addressed to our neighbor, not us.
Oh! I wonder if they got our package instead?
Walk over to neighbor's house for the first time and wonder which door to use.
There's no package of ours by either door.
I choose the front door, as it has a door bell.
They've rung our doorbell before, to bring back our little dog who had dug out of the yard.
We've said hi before.
I may have given them Qiao's phone number, but I don't think we have theirs. Qiao has spoken with them briefly a few times.
Ring the door bell. Wait. Ring door bell again. Wait.
Knock on the outer glass door. Wait.
I see a dog inside through the glass of the doors, eating or drinking or something. It didn't hear me yet.
I knock harder, and the dog hears me, and barks. It jumps up on the door.
Hi there! (Nice doggy!) Tell them someone's at the door!
I can hear kids running around inside.
They've heard the door bell or the knocking or the dog barking by now, I'm sure.
I hear one of the kids say "Don't answer it!"
There are 2 cars outside the house. I'm pretty sure an adult is home.
I keep waiting. Maybe it just takes them a few minutes to get out of bed and dressed, like me.
I knock a few more times, waiting.
Waiting. Kids running around inside.
Waiting.
I decide to send them a message on Nextdoor.com instead. For F*CKS sake.
Sudden irrational anger.
(Remembering the other times I've rung neighbors' doorbells & knocked on doors, waiting in vain for someone to answer. Dammit; people not answering their doors anymore in this day and age.)
I walk back to my house, maybe stomping as much as one can stomp in flip flops.
I bang the top of the package with my fist in passing.
Maybe we should just keep the dang thing.
That'll show them, not answering their frickin doorbell.
Now I'm all riled up; certainly no chance of falling back asleep.
I send them a message on Nextdoor, from Qiao's account.
Any reply they send will go to his email, so I guess it will have to wait until he gets up to see if they've answered.
I start writing this post.
Noonish. Our door bell rings.
It's the neighbor.
I give them their package.
They don't have ours.
Not surprising. It'll probably come later in the day. Hopefully.
I wonder if FedEx will notice their mistake.
Then I remember that I can check for a reply on the Nextdoor.com page too.
They sent a reply before coming over. They didn't hear the door bell; "guess it needs to be fixed".
Great. I still don't have their phone number. I forgot to ask.
I'll ask via Nextdoor.
Half an hour later.
Zorro growls and then barks.
I check the front door.
USPS mail carrier walking back to the mail truck.
(Dithering here over whether or not to use the gendered word "mailman" even though the person looks like a man. But what word would I use for a woman?
Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Say it enough and it will sound natural, I'm sure. Mail carrier. Mail carrier.)
USPS for this delivery, not FedEx.
It's the stroller.
They didn't even ring the door bell this time.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-25 08:51 am (UTC)From:Were the kids broken, too? The parents didn't hear them saying, "Don't answer it!" which does make me wonder. Maybe the house is very big and they were just too far away or around too much noise or distraction to hear them (or the dog, for that matter).
Deliveries for the neighbors on either side get dropped on our porch all the time. I just go drop it on theirs, don't usually even knock or text or call or even bother. It's not my stuff. Stuff from the mailbox I bring to them directly only because our boxes aren't numbered so I don't know who's is who's.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-25 02:48 pm (UTC)From:> The parents didn't hear them saying, "Don't answer it!"
Well I got the suspicion they don't ever answer the door, not even the adults, maybe due to security concerns... (thus giving me that spurt of anger about society nowadays), but in their defense I do believe the door bell was broken as the dog wasn't responding to it, only to the knocking. Whereas our dogs jump up and bark and try to get to the door whenever the doorbell rings.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-26 07:26 am (UTC)From:Maybe? I have a front (kitchen) window that looks toward the door so if I'm having "security concerns", lacking a peephole (which most of these apartments have though ours doesn't) I'll just go to the window and rattle around it until whomever's there notices, takes a step back and looks at me, so I can see who's there before I answer.
To me it's not a security concern until someone touches the knob, then all bets are off: I'm either storming that door with a baseball bat at the ready or I'm not answering/dialing 911, depending on how obnoxious action is on the other side. As long as the door isn't touched except to be knocked on, though, I'm not quite as flaky about the whole thing.
but in their defense I do believe the door bell was broken as the dog wasn't responding to it, only to the knocking.
That does add up, I guess.