Right before Christmas (yes we say Christmas here!) my wife was waiting for a package to arrive at the house via FedEx. She was concerned that it was going to require a signature – and our doorbell doesn’t exactly work. Oh you can press it and all- but it doesn’t make a lot of noise. It kind of just makes a quite buzzing sound like the plates are frozen or something – which is NOT likely to be heard with the standard background noise that a family of 6 generates!
So I recommended to my wife that she make a sign to post on the front door that said “DOORBELL BROKEN! Please yell ‘DING DONG!’ loudly three times. Thank you!”.
My wife is a little uncomfortable doing silly things like that most of the time – so I took the liberty of doing it myself and posting it conspicuously on the front door with great fanfare. The kids thought the sign was silly – but liked the idea. Melani – begrudgingly accepted it. A couple hours later, when I was at work, sure enough she heard a loud knock followed by an amused deliveryman yelling “Ding Dong” at the front of our house!
It’s been a few weeks since that has happened – and wouldn’t you know it – the same deliveryman still yells “Ding Dong!” every time he makes a delivery to our house (which is pretty frequently). He seems to quiet enjoy the routine now!
I understand my wife’s perspective and her sincere desire not to offend anyone and to generally please others. But I do encourage her to not take herself – or life in general, too seriously at times. After the fourth or fifth day of the deliveryman doing this we talked about how our note obviously added a little levity to the deliveryman’s day and made delivering to our house a little more memorable and fun. All good things – I would argue. Sure – there was a risk that he might think us fools or dorks – but does it really matter? We weren’t doing it to humiliate or hurt him. Our motives were to merely solve a practical problem (the doorbell not working & a delivery requiring a signature) with a hopefully humorous approach and solution.
It reminded me that we all need to step back sometimes, take a deep breath and not take everything in life so seriously. Indeed this is an attitude I want the children to have when they face challenging situations in life. Injecting a little more personality and humor into the situation can be a good thing – and might just take the edge off some of the normal and minor annoyances that life throws at us on a daily basis….
Sincerely,
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