The misplaced newspaper

Here's another story about how I got myself in trouble (so to speak) when I was only trying to help.

When I was walking my dog, Charlie, every day, I would notice things around the neighborhood. Big things were obvious but I'd notice small things because of seeing the same things every day. So, one day I noticed that my next-door neighbor had two papers in his driveway. From previous walks, I knew he got one of the papers but the other one, a local paper, looked like the one the next neighbor along our street subscribed to. I didn't think much about it until I got to that next neighbor and didn't see his local paper in his driveway. I figured that a new delivery person was on the route and had gotten mixed up. So, when Charlie and I were heading home, I stopped at my next door neighbor's driveway, picked up the local paper, back tracked to the other neighbor's house and tossed it into his driveway. What a nice guy I am!

The next day, the same thing happened and I made my special delivery again. I was really feeling like I was making a difference in the world. But it kept happening and I did this for the next few days. My wife explained to me that this was never going to get fixed if I keep making the deliveries. So, I stopped and hoped that the other neighbor would miss his local paper and call the office to straighten things out. But, as usual, I worried about it. Maybe the second neighbor was too busy or forgetful to call the paper. Maybe I was going to get the delivery person in trouble. I wasn't sure whether to knock on their doors and explain what had been happening or not. In my usual way, though, I just let it go.

It became one more thing to take notice of on our daily walk. A couple of days later, I noticed that the local paper was being delivered to both houses! Now I saw what must have happened. My next-door neighbor had started delivery of both papers at the same time that the other neighbor went on vacation and stopped delivery of the local paper for a week or so. Then they must have returned from vacation and started delivery again. So, I'd been giving my next-door neighbor's paper to the other neighbor. Someone must have been checking on their house and taking the papers away or putting it in their house because the paper was never there the next day. Or maybe the delivery person did get mixed up with a new client and forgot to deliver papers to both houses. Of course, I'll never really know because I'm too embarrassed to ask my neighbors what the story was. I'll just add it to my list of worries and regrets that I drag with me through life.