Story Shot 21, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 02 February 2021

Bright sunny (late) morning at my condo in SE Michigan.

I don’t mind telling you that circumstances have changed considerably since the Age of Covtardia[1] plopped itself unwelcome at my doorstep. [NO, THIS IS NOT ANOTHER STORY ABOUT ‘COVID’ OR COVTARDIA!!!

God, I’m so tired of this BULLSHIT STUPID-19!

You, too? Well, good. That’s how it needs to be. Torch the masks!]

What I want to talk about this morning is—it’s been exacerbated by covtardia because more and more people are spending their food money on carryout and delivery—what can happen if you don’t stay in the Now.

I’m just out on the stoop doing my daily simulation of Ben Franklin’s air bath (with deep breathing, earth connection—snow on the ground so my feets can’t touch soil—, meditation), when up walks this dude carrying a cardboard tray with a couple of cups of coffee and looks like a bag o’ donuts, and wants to hand it to me.

Aha. Delivery guy. I say, “Sorry, dude, you have the wrong address. Lemme see your receipt. This is 365nn, not 366nn.” And since this has happened before I point him in the general direction to the correct condo location.

Just a few days before, a delivery chick rang the doorbell, and I caught her, too.

She wanted to drop off sandwiches. Misdelivery has got to be ‘trending’ now.

What to do? Well, hopefully you catch them before they make the drop. But if not, there you are with a pizza or hoagie at your door that doesn’t belong to you. Best thing is check the receipt, call the store, have them correct the problem.

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The first time for me was several weeks ago, still summer. And that’s where the moral lesson comes in, occasioning the ‘beam: Be extra careful and attentive when doing something out of the ordinary, especially when it’s a nonroutine “good deed.”

Back then, it was a pizza, looked good, too. But knowing what I know now…

Out of neighborliness, I didn’t want it to get cold, so I plugged the address from the receipt into my handheld Waze GPS app—I could easily have walked it over there—and went to my garage to pull the car out and become the alternate delivery-boy.

Problem was that after I’d put the box in the back seat and got behind the wheel to back out, I forgot a key step, well, two: I left the rear car door wide open and then did not look in the driver’s side rearview mirror before backing out.

Crunch. Creak.

The rear of my driver’s side rear door ground into the track of the garage door.
Recognizing immediately what the sound meant, I managed to stop in an instant.
No noticeable damage to garage frame, but the window frame got ‘customized.’
Damn! But one of those vehicle injuries that reminds only me of being a klutz.

Sitting here now writing up the story, I’m reminded of a similar well-motivated action decades ago, by an unknown driver traveling eastbound on snowy-surfaced Maple Road. Going westbound, I saw the whole thing. It was a hilly section thru West Bloomfield and in a valley a woman motorist was parked on the shoulder in distress.

Unknown woobie Good Samaritan (male) Driver made to stop to help Distressed Driver. As he did so, the car skidded and his front bumper impacted a well-planted barrier post. Bop. Now two Distressed Drivers.

Lesson to self: If lending a rare hand to help my fellow man, avoid distress via extra “presence of mind.” If I haven’t reached that quality, just mind my own business, maybe tithe to the offering plate, and let the responsible ‘Georges’ fix their own fixes.

[1] The “mass-masked, suicidal, bat-shit crazy disease,” described in detailed footnote to Stonebeam #1.

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