I had the most ridiculously awkward interaction with the UPS delivery guy the other day. Allow me to paint a picture.
He rings the doorbell and I’m still in bed so I grab my phone and pull up the app for my security cameras, intending to speak to him through the mic. I open my mouth and attempt to say “Just a minute”. I have failed to account for the fact that I currently have laryngitis. Out of my mouth comes some sort of inhuman hiss/honk hybrid and the delivery guy snaps his neck around to stare at the camera like one might stare at a snake that just dropped from the ceiling two inches from your face.
After a pause that felt like eons he says, “I can’t hear you, sorry.” I scramble out of my bed, yanking on a pair of pajama pants and tossing a robe over my shoulders in the hope that it might make me look a little less like a feral animal who has just been dragged out of hibernation.
It doesn’t work.
I show up to the door with my hair doing its best impression of Albert Einstein and a red robe halfway over my shoulders, constantly on the verge of falling off due to the fact that I had failed to put either of my arms into the sleeves. As I push the door open I scoop up my cat, Steven, in a haphazard football carry so that he won’t bolt outside and with my free hand I hurriedly type a message on my phone.
“Sorry, I lost my voice.”
I hold it up so he can read it.
The delivery man squints at the phone.
“Oh, ok,” He responds.
He offers me a pad to sign.
“I’m just going to need your signature.”
Steven squirms.
My brain short-circuits.
For some reason known only to God I casually toss my phone over my shoulder. It lands on the hardwood floor with a thunk that will probably still be echoing when the world ends.
He looks at me.
I do not look at him, but I feel his eyes on my head.
