It started innocently enough. The week of Christmas, I ordered myself a new desk from Amazon. It came a few days later – in the wrong color. I called Amazon and they said they’d pick it up the following business day, but the right color was out of stock. I hung up the phone, and ordered an alternate desk I had been eyeing on Wayfair. I really wanted the new desk before the second semester of school started so that I could be ready to go on the first day of class.
The next day, UPS didn’t pick up the desk. Nor did they pick it up the day after that. When I called Amazon, they said it could take up to two weeks to have the returns picked up and to just be patient.
The next day, the UPS delivery man came. He told me he didn’t have room in the truck for my returns and that he’d be back tomorrow to get them. It was a terrible week to be ordering and returning since apparently the rest of the country was doing that then too. But he did drop off the Wayfair desk, which upon opening, I realized had broken in transit. I called Wayfair and they said they would refund me the money but to keep the desk. We didn’t know if we could fix it to make it usable, so we left it outside till we figured out what to do with it.
Meanwhile, I now ordered a third desk from Ikea, along with 2 bookcases. They came the following evening, but I didn’t bring them in right away. My front door had six huge boxes in front of it. I really hoped my UPS driver would show up tomorrow and be able to take my return.
Well, he didn’t. But the FedEx delivery man did. He dropped off a HUGE package from Wayfair. Before I could run outside to make sense of this new delivery, the truck was down the block. Peering inside, I saw dining chairs, which I had never ordered. But my name was on the shipping label. I needed to get to the bottom of this.
I now couldn’t even get to my front door without stepping over boxes. My house was starting to resemble the back room at the UPS Store. No wonder no one was picking up my stuff. It was positively overwhelming.
I called Wayfair the next day, and as it turns out, a shipping label from the desk I ordered a week before had mistakenly been put on the dining chairs and had shipped it to me in error. They said they would come the next business day to pick up the massive chairs.
I was now waiting for UPS to pick up both my Amazon desk and the Wayfair chairs. The next morning, I labeled both packages prominently so that the poor delivery man would know what’s what when he got to my door.
No one came.
I brought my desk and bookcases in. I built them. I brought in the broken Wayfair desk. My husband figured out how to make it usable and we put in my boys’ room for them to use.
I called Amazon and Wayfair again every couple days and reminded them about the returns. Amazon eventually escalated the issue and the package got picked up.
Finally, I was left with one HUGE package at my front door. Finally, after about a month of phone calls, Wayfair said they weren’t coming to get the chairs and to donate them. Hallelujah! Resolution! We gave them to a friend who had just moved into a new place and I finally broke down the box this weekend and put it at the curb with the recycling.
When I turned back to look at my front door, I marveled at how empty it looked. So open, so much space. I was reminded of the old folk tale about the couple who asked their rabbi what they should do about their house that was too small. He told them to bring in their farm animals, one at a time, for a few days each. Finally, when the family and a bunch of farm animals were crammed in the house, he instructed them to bring the animals back outside. When it was just their family again, they marveled at all the space they had.
It’s positively miraculous what a shift in perspective does for you. I’ve walked in my front door every day multiple times a day for the last 5 years. Never once did I stop to think about how nice it looked or how freeing it was to walk inside without boxes to step over.
Another perk? My Ring doorbell started picking up motion again since it wasn’t being blocked by boxes!
For the past few days, every time I walk inside I think just that. It’s incredible what a few boxes for a few weeks can do to your perspective. And if it works for my front door, it can work for a whole host of other things. I need a new computer. At least I have a computer. My house needs painting. At least I have a house. Heck, I have the luxury of ordering desks from my phone that come to my doorstep. In two days.
For me, being grateful for the daily blessings I have doesn’t come naturally. Maybe this isn’t the best way to be grateful, but knowing that things could always be worse….that helps me truly appreciate the blessings that I have now.
The challenge with a perspective shift is keeping that perspective even when the novelty wears off. Who knows? Maybe I’ll keep some boxes in the garage and lug them outside to my front door when I need a reminder.
