Doh!

One of the few things that makes me cringe on a regular basis is seeing what I've posted over the years on Facebook. About 3 years ago, I made a concerted effort to watch what I post on any social media, because once it's out there, there's usually no turning back. I seemed to have forgotten that notion on Friday when a post that wasn't necessarily terrible, ended up being a bit embarrassing. 
I've lived in my house for nearly 7 years. About a year after Dave and I moved in, a couple moved in a few houses up the street from us. Their house number ends in 1, ours in 7. Shortly after they moved in we started to get packages from the popcorn factory delivered to our address but to a name we didn't recognize around every holiday (Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc). The very first package we received I took the time to hunt down the address for the name on the package and learned it was our neighbor up the street. I didn't think anything of it at the time and happily gave them their package. The next holiday, I did the same thing again. And again, and again for the next 6 years. If that isn't enough of a nuisance, when we do take the package to the neighbor, they always answer the door and seem perturbed and inconvenienced by us dropping off the package.
Over the years, we've learned it was the grandmother of one of them who keeps sending the packages, so the last few times that we dropped the package off, we asked them to let grandma know that she's sending it to the wrong address. Each time we've asked, they've just brushed us off, saying things like, oh she's old, she'll never remember, etc. 

Which leads us to Friday, Dave came home and found another package on the doorstep. Dave is very patient and it takes a lot to frustrate him but seeing the package on the doorstep just really bothered him so he tried to call the Popcorn Factory to try and explain that they're sending it to the wrong people and to either note the account or to notify the sender, something, anything! Popcorn Factory refused to talk to Dave since we was neither the intended recipient or the sender. So I decided to post to a Facebook group I recently joined that is full of women who post questions, encouraging stories, rants, whatever to get their opinion. 
The post itself wasn't mean, it explained the situation, including the off putting attitude of our neighbors, and questioned whether or not it was wrong of us to keep the package or throw it out. I know, it sounds terrible, but we were just so fed up! For the next two hours or so, I was getting all different types of feedback from the women in the group from yes you should keep it! to return to sender, or it's not that big of a deal suck it up and keep walking it up to them, when I got a message request from Facebook messenger. I accepted the request and then my heart dropped at the name I saw. It was my neighbor. I never even took a moment to think that she may very well be in the same women's advice group that I was in. Her message was polite, but it definitely showed a bit of hurt or embarrassment:

I felt like such an ass. Regardless of what had transpired, this was no way to address the issue. If someone had posted something on a group site of over 4,000 women complaining about me, I would be hurt and humiliated. Not only does it make any future interactions with the neighbors awkward but  it leaves a bad taste in all our mouths. I promptly deleted the post and replied to our neighbor that I appreciated her taking care of the situation and for understanding our frustration. I had already given the package to another neighbor to drop off prior to all this happening so I also let her know that she should be getting it from the other neighbor shortly. 
I thought that was the last of it until the husband knocked on my door Saturday morning looking for the package since my neighbor forgot to drop it off **face palm**. Well if it didn't look like I was trying to keep the damn package before, it definitely looked like it now! Needless to say, he got his Easter package from Grandma, with a side of humble pie for all of us. Maybe this whole embarrassing situation will be a lesson learned for them as well and I won't see anymore of these packages? 
Moral of the story? Watch what you post on any social media since you never know who it's going to affect. Oh, and find out how to return to sender via UPS and FedEx for future unwanted, wayward packages. 

What Would You Do? -Bridesmaid Edition

Today's post is another round of "What Would You Do?" This time around it's the bridesmaid edition.

I've been a bridesmaid four times in my adult life. I've been asked five, but I turned down one girl. I'm pretty sure that's unheard of. Here's why I chose not to be a bridesmaid to the fifth girl. 

This should be part of awkward family photos. 

Being a bridesmaid is a role I take seriously, which I'm sure we all do. Part of that means being a honest, loyal, good friend. It also means taking on all the financial responsibilities that is required of a bridesmaid.

The girl who asked me, asked me at the same time my Aunt Penny did. I knew I couldn't afford being a bridesmaid in both and Aunt Penny would always take precedence in this situation, so I told the girl I couldn't afford to be in both weddings and left it at that.

The catch is that there was a deeper reasoning behind choosing not to be a part of her wedding. Honestly, if it meant enough to be I would have found a way, and the money, to be in both weddings. The bigger reason that I chose not to be in her wedding was because I didn't see myself being her friend in the future. 

I know that most of us usually have one bridesmaid that we lose touch with in our lifetime. It happens. The way that I see it is that that girl was an important part of your life at that moment in time but nothing lasts forever. In short, shit happens. But I believe that if you ask any of those girls at that time if they felt like they'd be friends forever, most of them would say yes. I felt that if I said I would be her bridesmaid while knowing that we wouldn't last as friends, I'd be doing a disservice to this girl and her wedding. 

Photo via Siousca Photography

I know you're probably wondering why I was even friends with someone if I didn't think we'd remain friends. It was a friendship of convenience, we were co-workers and didn't have many other friends in the company. She also wasn't a great friend to me, she was very bossy. It's not completely her fault, I allowed her to boss me around. We stopped speaking shortly after she left the company and she unfriended me twice on Facebook. There was no big blowout, no drama (well no major drama), we just drifted apart. 

 I'm glad I chose not to be a part of this girl's wedding day, not because of hard feelings I hold against this girl, because there are none, but because she won't have to look at a lost friendship when she looks through her wedding photos, which is something I knowingly prevented.

So what would you do? Would you be a part of someone's wedding if you didn't think you'd be friends in the end?

What Would You Do?

Source

I was driving home from school the other night around 7 pm. I was all alone on my local bypass, nothing but me and my headlights. It reminded me of another time when I was all alone on the bypass a few years earlier. I was coming home from school that night too when all of a sudden out of nowhere a big tow truck comes up behind me, high beams blinding me in my rear-view mirrors, and he was following veryclose.

I normally don't engage these kinds of people, because you never know who is psycho or who has a gun. If I'm in the left hand lane, I get over to the right. If I'm on a road, I'll normally turn off and let them get ahead of me. But in this situation, I wasn't going to pull off the side of the road, who knows what this person would have done if we stopped? So I slowed down (very slowly too! no jamming on the brakes) less than the 55 mph that the road allowed, down to about 35-40. I figured going slow would make them get bored enough to go around me, which is exactly what this person did. 

When they pulled around me though, they positioned the truck in between the two lanes so that I couldn't pass and slowed down even more, almost like they were trying to force me to stop. I have no idea why this person did this or what was going on, literally one minute I'm alone on the highway, the next I've got this psycho coming after me. I didn't know what to do, so I pulled my phone out, turned the screen on and held it up near my head like I was going to make a call. As soon as the person saw me do that they sped up and disappeared. 

I was really shaken and when I got home a few minutes later and told Dave about it, my biggest regret was that I didn't call the cops or 911. I really wished I had given them this truck's info, but how often do cops just go out looking for crazy drivers? My guess is that unless it's happening, not very often. This whole ordeal lasted no more than two minutes so by the time I had my wits about me again, it was all over. 

What would you have done if you were in my situation? Have you ever had a scary run in on the road like I did?