About 65 million packages are delivered every day in the United States. We all know the drill. Today's load of brown cardboard is deposited on the front steps, if we have them, or the package room of a building. The UPS or Amazon guy snaps a picture. We look outside, think, "Goodies!" and go collect our new stuff and add it to the old stuff.
But what if a package isn't yours? Some 2 or 3 percent of shipments — about a million packages a day — go astray. What do you do if one of them washes up on your front step? What is your responsibility for these goods you did not order and do not want? Call UPS? Open the box? Keep what's inside? It isn't a gift, precisely. Though someone gave it to you. If they're intended for a neighbor, the right and decent thing to do is walk the box over — just last week, a magazine for someone living two blocks away ended up in our mail, and next time I walked Kitty, I took the publication with me and saw it to its proper recipient, feeling a little conspicuous when I walked up to his house and shoved it through the mail slot. People have been shot for less.
But a few days ago something strange happened. We got a long UPS box — at first I thought it was flowers, which sometimes come that way. But inside was a wooden play set for the new grand babe and ... a separate UPS box, within the first, containing a 17 piece DeWalt combination wrench set. That box was addressed to a tool shop in Mokena.
For a moment, I wondered if it was part of the gift — a play set for the babe, wrenches for grandpa. But that was daft. Nobody would do that. So what should I do? Having my own tools, plus tools inherited from my father-in-law, plus some from a neighbor moving far away, I am rich in hand tools, particularly wrenches, from tiny wrenches to big spanners a foot and a half long that look like they're intended for tightening bolts on an aircraft carrier.
But what if a package isn't yours? Some 2 or 3 percent of shipments — about a million packages a day — go astray. What do you do if one of them washes up on your front step? What is your responsibility for these goods you did not order and do not want? Call UPS? Open the box? Keep what's inside? It isn't a gift, precisely. Though someone gave it to you. If they're intended for a neighbor, the right and decent thing to do is walk the box over — just last week, a magazine for someone living two blocks away ended up in our mail, and next time I walked Kitty, I took the publication with me and saw it to its proper recipient, feeling a little conspicuous when I walked up to his house and shoved it through the mail slot. People have been shot for less.
But a few days ago something strange happened. We got a long UPS box — at first I thought it was flowers, which sometimes come that way. But inside was a wooden play set for the new grand babe and ... a separate UPS box, within the first, containing a 17 piece DeWalt combination wrench set. That box was addressed to a tool shop in Mokena.
For a moment, I wondered if it was part of the gift — a play set for the babe, wrenches for grandpa. But that was daft. Nobody would do that. So what should I do? Having my own tools, plus tools inherited from my father-in-law, plus some from a neighbor moving far away, I am rich in hand tools, particularly wrenches, from tiny wrenches to big spanners a foot and a half long that look like they're intended for tightening bolts on an aircraft carrier.
Then there was the mystery of how the wrenches got in there. Or maybe not such a mystery. Having once toured an Amazon fulfillment center, a vast, sprawling, frenetic hive of Seussian commotion — roaring conveyers, chutes, slides, twirling robots, human pickers pushed to the limits of human capacity — the potential for error was easy enough to see. There must be astounding tales of unimaginable screw-ups, waiting to be uncovered.
I thought of gifting the wrenches — they were mine now, were they not? — perhaps bestowing them on the younger boy. But he has no need for wrenches, now or in the foreseeable future. They would just be a burden, more crap from dad. The thing to do was send them on their way. Return them to UPS.
My wife was dubious — I think she viewed me as somehow now responsible for these wrenches. Possession is 9/10 of the law. She wondered whether UPS would just take them from me. But I pointed out the mailing label, with the all-important bar code. They were on a journey. The thing to do would be to speed them on their way. We were heading to Red's Garden Center anyway, to load up on herbs and flowers and such. The UPS store was on the way.
When we pulled into the strip mall, I suggested she wait in the car. No, she said, she wanted to see how this goes down. Given my luck, she might have been worried that, without her cool head, some kind of Roger Thornhill chain of mistaken events would be set in motion, like in "North by Northwest." "He's here! The guy with the wrenches!" one of the UPS workers would cry, and I'd end up climbing down the face of Mount Rushmore with Eva Marie Saint.
We walked in.
"Can I help you?" the clerk said.
"You delivered these to me," I said, hefting the box onto the counter. "But I am not the Pennsylvania Tools of Mokena." He took the box without a word. We turned and walked out. She praised my honestly, but I was thinking of how the situation would have transpired had it been, not superfluous wrenches, but a DeWalt reciprocating saw. I could really use one of those.
I thought of gifting the wrenches — they were mine now, were they not? — perhaps bestowing them on the younger boy. But he has no need for wrenches, now or in the foreseeable future. They would just be a burden, more crap from dad. The thing to do was send them on their way. Return them to UPS.
My wife was dubious — I think she viewed me as somehow now responsible for these wrenches. Possession is 9/10 of the law. She wondered whether UPS would just take them from me. But I pointed out the mailing label, with the all-important bar code. They were on a journey. The thing to do would be to speed them on their way. We were heading to Red's Garden Center anyway, to load up on herbs and flowers and such. The UPS store was on the way.
When we pulled into the strip mall, I suggested she wait in the car. No, she said, she wanted to see how this goes down. Given my luck, she might have been worried that, without her cool head, some kind of Roger Thornhill chain of mistaken events would be set in motion, like in "North by Northwest." "He's here! The guy with the wrenches!" one of the UPS workers would cry, and I'd end up climbing down the face of Mount Rushmore with Eva Marie Saint.
We walked in.
"Can I help you?" the clerk said.
"You delivered these to me," I said, hefting the box onto the counter. "But I am not the Pennsylvania Tools of Mokena." He took the box without a word. We turned and walked out. She praised my honestly, but I was thinking of how the situation would have transpired had it been, not superfluous wrenches, but a DeWalt reciprocating saw. I could really use one of those.
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