Nice Work If You Can Get It

So I’m away from home last Friday trying to receive a delivery at the place where I’m staying. Bad combination I know, but I do learn something from it, yes indeedy.

The UPS guy does come with this package that needs signing for, only he comes so early I’m not there to sign for it. His note says he can try again Monday but it’s kind of a do-or-die thing for me; I need what he has for me NOW. So, I call the distribution center from which those boxy brown trucks go caroming all over the county. "Can I come fetch it today?" I ask, knowing that they'll be closed all weekend.

“Well tell you what,” says the jaunty soul on the other end of the line. "I’ll give you the driver’s cell phone number and you can work something out. His name is Scott.”

"Okay" I say, thinking this seems a tad odd but it’s cool, it’s cool. I take down the number and call him right up.

“Hello?” Scott answers.

“Scott, hi sorry to call your cell but the UPS lady said to. You tried to deliver a package to me this morning but I wasn’t there. I just wondered what time you might be going back to the distribution center so I can maybe pick it up.”

“Not’ til 5:30,” he says and darn it all I have to be someplace 30 miles from there at that hour.

“You’re not coming by here again?”

“Nope.”

“Not even close”?

“Nope. You can come to me though.”

“Come to you?”

“Yeah I’m grabbing a bite at that new restaurant on 125,” he says and starts in giving me directions to a pizza-and-beer joint several towns over. “You’d better hurry though. I won’t be here forever.”

A little perplexed by all this, I grab my car keys, open Google Maps on my phone and head out. Up one hill and down another I go, past tackle stores and bodies of water, alongside pastures and meadows until finally, at a little strip mall with an Italian flag out front, I spot that boxy brown truck.

And there is our Scott standing outside the driver’s side door, set to climb aboard and drive away as it looks. Oh No! Have I come all this way only to miss him AND my crucial package?

But as I get closer I can see that standing though he is, he is not standing alone.

I swing into the parking lot and that's when I see that he's in fact standing with another person, a girl who. just at that moment, he lifts clear off the ground, while smooching her in extended fashion.

I get out of my car and walk toward him.

“Scott?” I say when he comes up for air.

“Yup” he grins.

“I almost missed you!”

"Yeah but you didn’t," he says, still madly grinning, and turns and pulls my package out of his truck.

I smile. He smiles. The girl smiles.

And everyone goes home happy.