So Out of Character For You

Dearest Rachel –

I was going to start this letter off by talking about how, thirty-one years ago today, we were preparing to pack up and head back from our honeymoon. The folks from the diamond-making place referred to this trip as your ‘homecoming,’ you see, and it seemed appropriate to juxtapose today with an event from the early days of our lives together.

However, somewhere along the way, thing went just a little sideways. When I was asked to schedule a date last week for me to receive you, I was informed that I would need to be available to sign for your package at any time of the day; they couldn’t guarantee what time it would show up (much like trying to arrange for repairs on one’s house). It could be at eight in the morning, it could be eight in the evening, or anywhen (is that a word?) in between. All fairly standard, if still mildly annoying – albeit offset by the fact that I have no real ‘work’ commitments (or any type of commitments on any given day, for that matter) – and all I needed to do was to inform the folks that I would be staying home today.

Except… while I was at the ‘office’ yesterday, I got a text message from FedEx that a package was arriving at the house that needed a signature to claim. The text showed today’s date, however, so I just thought they were reminding me of today’s delivery, and set it aside. I already knew about the twelve-hour delivery window they’d scheduled for me, after all; while I appreciated the reminder, it didn’t strike me as particularly necessary, since I’d already made arrangements to be there when your package arrived.

What I hadn’t made arrangements for, though, was that the notice was that the delivery was being made at that moment, and somebody needed to be there to sign for it right then and there. And while ordinarily this wouldn’t have been terribly problematic, as Daniel is home all day, every day, he had gone off to take a bath (probably in preparation for going out to oversee the games at Sparks club last night), and was somewhat indisposed – although he did somehow manage to pull himself together and answer the door, thankfully enough. He let me hear about it when I got home, though, in his own low-key way.

It’s funny, though. After being assured that you would be arriving… sometime… today, you show up completely outside of the expected period – and early, no less! How utterly out of character for you!

Not that you’re responsible for when you arrive anymore; this was on either FedEx or the diamond company, I guess. And since you did show up early, I really have no reason to complain, either – although maybe Daniel does. Now, instead of sitting around all day, wondering when you’ll be here, I can get you over to the jewelers’ first thing in the morning (well, once the business opens, anyway), and tell you about it all long before I ever expected to, since I planned to take the day off to wait for you. Although… maybe that’s the whole point; you didn’t want me to just sit around, waiting.

So first, let’s get you out of your packaging… and yes, this means doing an unboxing…

But now that you’re here, it turns out that there’s nothing I can do with you at the moment; upon looking it up, it turns out that the jeweler is closed from Sunday through Tuesday. Sunday and Monday, I can understand; consider it a restauranteur’s weekend. But Tuesday? Well, if his clientele is okay with it, I guess it works for him.

So it would seem I’ll have to hang a “to be continued” label on this story for now, and head to the ‘office.’ At least this has allowed me to show you around to folks who wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to see you in this otherwise unadorned state. I know the folks, in particular, have been asking about you (I sometimes wonder if they think the diamond company ran off with my money; it will be good to show you to them and reassure them of the fact that they did produce quality results. They might dispute whether the money spent was worthwhile – this process is considerably pricier than purchasing a diamond of similar size on the open market – especially since it could be argued that carbon is carbon, after all, but I doubt that they would necessarily exercise that right, especially since I’ve not told them how much of a difference it was). I may see if I can get it over tomorrow after walking with Lars, or later still this week; we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Until then, keep an eye on me – and yourself, honey – and wish us both luck. We’re going to need it.