Love thy neighbour ... apparently

 

Sometimes when we buy something from the Internet and we are out when the delivery man comes, he leaves the item with our neighbour. I don't know if this has ever happened to you because you've never written about it. It may have happened and you did not saw fit to comment publicly about this occurrence. But it did happen to us with dire effects.

The other day the doorbell rang and the delivery man left a package with us for our neighbour who was out at the time. We waited for the neighbour to come and collect it later in the day but he did not do so.

Our house is number 835. So I went to see the guy next door, at Number 833. He said he had not ordered anything on-line and was not expecting a package. He asked me for the name on the package and having tried to read it because it was smudged from the rain, I said, "the name's obliterated!" He replied, "As you know, my name is Ferguson!"

So I went to the neighbour on the other side of our house, Number 837. Over here the numbers are even on one side of the street and odd on the other. We are No. 835 and going uphill there are 837, 839, 841 and so on; and downhill there are 833, 831 and so on.

The neighbour at 837 said he did not expect a package either. So I tried his neighbour at 839, and 841 and all the way uphill to 997. No one was expecting a package.

So I walked downhill to our house and tried neighbour 831 and all the way down to house 733; no one claimed the package which was getting heavier by the minute. Or perhaps I was getting tired.

I walked back home uphill and then it occurred to me that perhaps the courier meant to deliver it to the neighbour across the road from us at Number 834. So I tried him, and all houses uphill all over again on the opposite side of the road, and all the way downhill.

No one admitted to owning the package.

I got home, tired and frustrated at being a Christian and a good Samaritan. I thought perhaps the delivery man meant neighbour in the Biblical sense and the package was meant for someone at one of the four corners of the globe. (Do globes have corners?)

I rang the courier company. They said they could not identify the delivery address from the description I gave them on the phone and would I mind sending them the package at their depot 200 miles away. 

As it happens, I do mind going that distance. I think Jesus should have been more precise when He said "Love thy neighbour!"

In the meantime, are any of you expecting a package you bought on-line which perhaps has been delivered to us pending collection? If so, please come and get it because I am not walking all the way to where you live.