That took a turn!

FedEx Home Delivery is a sub division of Ground, we focused primarily on residential deliveries while Ground took more of the business deliveries. Since we handled residential runs, we worked Tuesday through Saturday, so we could reach people at home for packages requiring a signature.

It was on one of these Saturday runs, early one morning in the spring, that I stopped at one of my strangest deliveries. It was in a neighborhood that surrounded a golf course, the houses were large and pricey, the people hardly home. I rolled up in front of my target house and noticed there was a young girl, about 7 years old, still in her nightgown, bouncing a basketball on the sidewalk of the house next door. I thought it odd that she was not only outside so early, in her nightgown, and with no adults in sight. As I carried my delivery up the sidewalk to the house next door, she grabs the ball in both hands and calls out to me,

"Can you help me?"

I tell her,

"Let me set down this box and then you can tell me what you need."

So I make my drop and back down the driveway I go. She runs up to me and says "Can you help me now?" I say "What's wrong honey?" She says and I quote, "Grandma won't wake up."

My stomach sinks, I ask her if Grandma was supposed to be watching her, if anyone else was home, if she new how to reach her mom or dad. She tells me her mom was at work, her dad was back in India on business, and Grandma was supposed to be watching her, but she wouldn't wake up.

I tell her I will call someone to help, but she wants me to help her wake up Grandma. I call 911 and give them the details, the lady on the phone goes, "awww, poor thing. We will send someone right out." I tell her I will stay until they get there.

The little girl is now standing in the doorway of her front door, so I go and tell her that someone was coming that would be able to help her. She grabs my hand and pulls me into the doorway saying, "No, you come help me wake her up."

Just inside the doorway off to the right is a den, curtains drawn, dark, with a couch, a blanket, and Grandma. From where I stood at the doorway, she looked as if she could have been dead for days. sunken cheeks and eyes, pale, frail. I say "OK hun, lets go back outside and wait for help to get here." She goes over to the couch instead and grabs Grandma by both shoulder, starts to bounce her up and down on the couch, and yells "Grandma Wake UP!"

I rush over to stop her before something breaks, and as I take the little girl by the shoulder to guild her back outside, Grandma...woke...up.

How to describe the next few moments... Grandma looks up from the couch, sees me (6'4" 250 lbs.) standing over her with my hand on her grandchild's shoulders, and screams. Loud. She keeps screaming as I back out of the house (only 2 or 3 steps) meanwhile the little girl is jumping up and down clapping her hands and shrieking with glee that her Grandma is awake. As I make it out the door, Grandma is now clutching the girl and yelling at me in Farsi, and that, my friends, is when the police pulled in to the driveway.

Now Grandma is yelling at the police in Farsi and pointing at me. I am trying to explain to them what just happened, and then the emergency first responder truck pulled up. Finally I get my story out to the police, they get someone on the horn that speaks Farsi, and we get Grandma calmed down enough to find out what happened.

It turns out that the girls mom went in to work, her dad was in India for a month on business, and Grandma had a cold and took some Nyquil night time medicine the night before and it knocked her out cold. finally, with everything out in the open and me not going to jail, I was back in my truck and off to my second stop of the day. Hope it goes a bit smoother.