Sometimes, these meal delivery routes are just routine. I don’t expect sparkles, sunshine, and unicorns—or even something funny—but come on, give me something. Which is why, when Audrey and I delivered meals this week, we kept saying “can someone please show us a little bit of love??” I think we’ve gotten into this headspace where we expect something goofy or unusual to happen. We do have that track record.
We delivered B-13, one of the southside Bethlehem routes. It was a beautiful day and the chill in the air remained with us whenever I parked in the shade. We had a nice tour of some streets on the southside that we would otherwise never have seen. The views from a few of the houses tucked right up against the hillside were breathtaking.
Audrey and I do seem to attract some interesting experiences when we deliver, but I’ll let you know now, that we are going to disappoint this time. It was a pretty quiet delivery. (Maybe we are getting better??) The first clients weren’t home. The third said “leave the meal outside,” as the outside door to her apartment building was locked. I explained that we can’t leave the meal outside and she told us to just skip her. We felt terrible about doing that but there was no way in and the client couldn’t get down to the door.
Audrey took the meal to the client whose family owns a small grocery. She loved the vibe in the store, saying it was very cute and everyone was friendly. When I came back to the office, I found out that Melissa delivered to that client and had the exact same reaction to the store.
The rest of the meals were delivered without incident or interesting observations. Even the two cats we encountered found us too unworthy of their attention. That may have been our biggest letdown of the route, to be honest.
And why am I writing about such a banal experience? Because as we know, that is likely how most routes go on any given day—which is a good thing. We, and I’m sure you, prefer that delivery routes occur without many bumps.
Despite feeling that we didn’t connect with clients as we have on some of our other deliveries, the route offered up what it really means to be a MOW client—just another day in the life. It’s another day of getting a warm, healthy meal, and seeing a smiling face. So often I’m writing about the impact that these deliveries have on us. I never mean to glamorize what we do or deemphasize the importance of the daily delivery to a client.
The “little bit of love” we got from B-13 came from knowing that it was a job well done. We didn’t mess up, wrote some good notes on the route sheet, remembered to not plug in our red bag (it was salad day!!), and enjoyed our time driving around the southside (because there wasn’t any snow). All of us here are ever grateful to the volunteers who continue to engage in this crucial mission on a regular basis, knowing that there is likely not to be any fanfare or outrageous occurrences. It just has to get done. As one of our longtime volunteers says with a shoulder shrug: “People have to eat.” It is that simple.