Things are a bit of a mess here at our little red house. We were scheduled to take delivery of a washer-dryer set today, so I moved a lot of furniture around, took doors off hinges, disconnected the old clothes washer and dryer so they were ready to be hauled away. This left the living room and the dining room both unusable but it was only for the day. I anticipated being able to put everything back in time for evening dinner BUT THEN …

I got a phone call at about one-thirty in the afternoon, letting me know the delivery truck had been in a traffic accident. As a result, they would not be able to deliver our washer and dryer today. Sorry to hear that, I said, hope everyone’s okay. He went on to say they would reschedule delivery of our appliances and we could expect them on Tuesday. I don’t know why I didn’t immediately push back but after I hung up, I felt more irritated by that 4-day wait with every passing minute. I found the business card of the guy who sold us the appliances and called his number. No answer, but I left a message asking him to look into this to see if he couldn’t get our purchases delivered sooner.

Then I hopped in the car and drove down to the show room where we bought the appliances. I figured making a personal appearance might be more effective than leaving voicemail messages all over the place. The sales person I spoke to said she would do her best, but didn’t give me a whole lot of hope that she could get our delivery on the Saturday truck.

But after I returned home, I got a text from the guy who sold the appliances to us, in response to my call and voicemail. He assured me our washer-drier set would be on the Saturday truck and promised we would get it that day. I texted back right away to thank him maybe a little excessively, because I was more than a bit relieved that our house might not be a mega-mess from now until Tuesday night.