Mystery Box and Contents

The package was left on my porch table one evening last week by UPS — a neat Amazon Prime carton addressed to me.  I hadn’t ordered anything, at least not lately, but my memory is sometimes a bit wonky these days, so what the heck!

Inside I found another box — this one containing a Hamilton Beach Glass Kettle!  It was nothing I had ordered and, look though I might, I found no indication as to who had sent this to me.  I re-packaged it and put it in the back-forty, waiting for enlightenment.  Somehow, it didn’t feel quite right to accept a gift from an unknown benefactor.  And, basically, I felt there had been a mistake.

And speaking of “unknown benefactors” — I seem to have acquired more than one.  I love the thought and the intent (I think) but I do draw the line at food offerings.  Every once in a while I come home to a neatly packaged item — usually a “sweet” — waiting for me by the front door.  No name.  No indicators of who left it.

Last week it was a delicious looking brownie and another chocolaty confection.  They were sitting on a lovely flowered paper plate and neatly wrapped in a clear plastic food wrap.  After checking all my message sources (and aren’t there a lot of them these days?  FB and Email and telephone messages…) and finding nothing about food delivery, I pitched it unopened into the garbage.  Sorry, whoever-you-are, but my mother’s words came back loud and clear:  “Never accept food from strangers.”  And without an ID on the gift, I felt a tad uncomfortable.

So far, I haven’t had a clue as to my brownie philanthropist.  But yesterday I did receive a call from friends Randal and Susan in Olympia to see if the glass kettle had arrived.  “Oh!!  I wondered who sent it,” I said.

“Didn’t they include a note?  I tried to be very clear about that because I knew it might be a problem…” Randal told me.  “Yep.  I came ‘that close’ to sending it back…” and in the ensuing discussion, he convinced me to give it a try.  So I am doing so, but I’m still weighing pros and cons. Bottom line, I guess I’m a bit set in my ways and probably independent-to-a-fault!   I’m working on it…