8 years ago, our friend, Janell, and I (Patti) delivered our first Meals on Wheels (MOW) route. We discovered why groups of apartments are called "complexes"
- how come, when you're looking for building 25, the building numbers go in this sequence: 14, 15, 16, 17, 43, 44, 45...?
- how come, when you go into an apartment complex via a particular gate, you can't go back to that gate to exit, but rather must drive around the apartment buildings looking for a gate that allows you to go out?!?!?
One of the couples that we delivered to had a cat that had a fancy collar on... upon our comments about it, the man of the couple proceeded to take us to one of the guest bedrooms in their house that had racks and racks of kitty costumes! He assured us that the cat *liked* to wear the costumes...
There was one time that we had a client on the manifest that was labeled as a "new" client - the MOW office kept this designation on the list for many days (maybe a whole month, so people like us who only delivered once a month would be aware). On this particular day though, this must have been the very first delivery to that client - Janell was driving, so I got to do the delivery to the door - I knocked on the door, no answer, I knocked again, no answer, I was about to signal Janell to call the number listed on the manifest when the door cracked open and a 20-something man who had obviously just been awakened by my knocking opened the door. I said, "I guess you're not 'Mrs Williams'?" and he confirmed that my guess was correct... It seems that sometimes clients had their paperwork in process for quite a while before they got accepted into the program... I don't know why the address had not been re-checked before they went onto our manifest -- and we DID re-check the address, building, and apartment number, we HAD gone to the right place.
Going to the right place wasn't always the case though - at one point, we were in an apartment complex across the street from the one we were supposed to be in. Thankfully, the complex across the street did not have the same building and apartment number that the one we were looking for (or we probably would have knocked on the wrong door!)... we called the client, and they said that they would be standing outside waiting for us... *eventually* we found them!
And the funniest, that I wasn't even a part of, Janell reminded me of this morning - one time, she delivered the route by herself. We had our own list of the clients with our own notes about how to find the person's residence ("glider lady" for the one with a glider outside her door) or the name of caregivers or the client's pet so we could greet them also. We tried to make sure each time that there was no difference between our list and the MOW list, but... Janell evidently missed the fact that the first person on "our" list was no longer on the MOW list. The lady she delivered to was not surprised to get the meal (she had a bit of dementia), but when Janell got to the end of the meals in the box, there was still another name on the MOW manifest who needed to receive her meal! At that point, Janell realized what had happened, called the MOW office and confessed... good Catholic that she is! The MOW office took it all in stride, saying that they would just let the last client know to eat one of her shelf-stable meals... You better believe we VERY CAREFULLY compared the MOW manifest to our list from then on!
Just 3 years ago:
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| We were on our first night of RV camping in a rented RV. We took the cats and went for a 4 day weekend trip to see if we liked it. We *did* like it, but decided that we did NOT like the layout of that rig (the bed was in the back passenger-side corner, and the only way in/out of it was by one corner at the foot of the bed). There were also cabinets above the bed which were just waiting to bang your head while you were struggling to put sheets onto this mattress that you were kneeling on top of. |
So, that's "This date in history!"
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