Name and Address

Darryl the deliveryman walked up to the house and rang the doorbell. This was his last delivery of the day and he was anxious to get back to the warehouse so he could clock out and go home. Beyond just wanting to relax, his girlfriend, Joslyn, was making lasagna for dinner tonight and he'd been looking forward to it all day.

After a short wait, a tired-looking woman holding a baby answered the door. She was dressed in sweatpants and an oversized, stained t-shirt, with her greasy hair tied in a loose ponytail. The baby in her arms smiled at Darryl, all the while drooling on to the bib that made up the only clothing it was wearing, apart from a diaper.

"Yes?" she yawned, a look of weary indifference on her face. "Can I help you?"

"Hi there," Darryl said politely. "I’ve got a package here for a … uh, a Muh… Muhbil… aw, geez. I’m sorry, but this one is a tough one."

"The name’s Stromberg," the woman said flatly.

"Wow," said Darryl, "I would not have guessed that from the spelling." He scanned the package’s barcode with a handheld scanner, tucked the cardboard box under his arm, and turned the scanner around so that the screen faced the woman. "Please sign here."

She took the stylus and distractedly signed her name. A crashing sound came inside the house. "Jeffery! Knock it off!" she shouted behind her without taking her eyes from off the scanner. "Sorry about that," she said as she finished signing her name. "My husband’s on a business trip and I’ve been all alone with the kids for nearly the whole week."

"Don't worry about it," Darryl said, taking the scanner back and pressing a few buttons. "You just yelled at your kid. I didn't have to run from a dog or someone with a weapon, so I still count this as an easy delivery." Having marked the package as delivered in his scanner, Darryl handed the woman the cardboard box. "Just out of curiosity, how do you pronounce your first name?"

"Gretchen," Mrs. Stromberg said, a little confused.

"Huh," Darryl said, surprised. "Well, you've got some creative ways to spell your names. Have a nice day!" Darryl started walking back to the delivery truck as Gretchen read the label on the package.

"Hold on a second," she called after him, her eyes still on the box. "This isn't for us."

"Really?" Darryl asked, one foot already inside the truck.

"Yeah," she said, the annoyance in her voice intensifying. "We're the Strombergs, not the Mmm… Muhbellawannas," she said less-than-confidently. "And this isn't even our address. We're on Elm Street, not Elk."

Darryl paused. He considered just driving off and letting someone at the distribution warehouse worry about it, but since he already scanned the package, it would eventually get traced back to him. He took his foot out of the truck walked back towards the house and Gretchen.

"Sorry about that, ma'am," he said, his voice flavored with irritated disappointment. "Mistakes like this are rare these days, but they do happen. Lucky us." He scanned the package a second time, pressed some buttons, and took the box back from Mrs. Stromberg. "Sorry to bother you," he apologized.

"That's okay," Gretchen said, a slight smile creeping onto half of her face. "If I'm being honest, it was just nice to talk to someone about something other than dinosaurs or princesses."

"Well," Darryl said, grinning, "I'm glad I could give you a couple of minutes of human conversation. Have a nice day."

Gretchen waved as she stepped back inside and closed the door. Darryl got into his truck and typed in the address from the package into the GPS mounted on the dashboard, mentally kicking himself for not catching the typo. When the route loaded, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that his destination was only eight minutes away.

As he drove away, Darryl laughed ironically to himself. He must have really been thinking hard about lasagna if he thought Gretchen Stromberg could somehow be spelled "Ayo Mbelewana."