I'm somewhat fuzzy on the exact wording but am familiar with the thrust of the famous phrase, if you'll pardon my pun. Chekov wrote: "if you have an oversized dildo in the first act, by the second, someone--lips parted, eyes screwed tightly shut, gasping for air--will find herself repeatedly impaled on it." He should have said: "if you use mail order, make sure the company uses discreet packaging." Who could possibly think that one wouldn't? Or that they'd use a nearly illegible hand-written label?
I faced a dilemma. When I'd answered the doorbell, a bored-looking courier asked if I'd be willing to sign for the "neighbor lady's package", to use his exact term. I wished that, like her, I hadn't been home. Honestly, what kind of courier would see that parcel and then ask a neighbor to sign for it? My door closed, I looked more closely at the garish packaging, reading: "Includes Faux Leather Harness."
A mother and daughter had just moved in next door, in time for the start of the fall college term. We hadn't been introduced. The package was addressed to Lucy Haines--or maybe Lucy Raines? Hard to say. But which one was she? The mother or the daughter?
I decided to play it safe and just leave the package on their doorstep. I put it in a plastic shopping bag then started up their walkway. Almost at the door, I jumped when a car pulled into the driveway. A compact brunette about ten years younger than me got out. I waved.
She introduced herself as Melanie. So, not the mother's package.
"Just call me Mel," she said. "I spotted you outside the other day." Her smile was warm.
"Kelly," I replied and twisted the grocery bag in my left hand, spinning it to close the top, then looping the cinched handle around my fist. I grasped Melanie's extended hand.
I could picture Lucy's embarrassment if I'd left the package there for her mom to find. Still, what a torturous conversation for me. Trying to make small talk with a woman I'd just met while holding her daughter's sex toy in a thin plastic bag.
She'd already done the conversational heavy lifting, by initiating the introductions, and sparing me from having to explain who I was.
"Just being neighborly," I squeaked, with an odd-sounding nervous laugh, my voice octaves higher than normal. My hand vaguely waved in the direction of my house. I was sweating, despite the pleasant fall temperature. When her eyes alit on the bag, panic struck. I retreated, hastily.