My Packages Kept Disappearing from My Doorstep – One Day I Found Out Who Was Behind It and Made Them Regret It

Once her packages begin going missing off her porch, Jules points the finger at the cool new woman next door. What starts as the suspicion turns into a confrontation, which neither of them sees coming. In this small community where nothing ever occurs, Jules finds out that the truth lies not in what is taken but in what is found.

The neighborhood was a nice, quiet place where people waved, but seldom spoke. I was living in the cul-de-sac at the end of the road with my cat, Molly, and the most adorable habit, buying something unnecessary too many things online.

I adored the little thing of getting home, opening the door, Molly circling up my legs, and taking out of a box something new. One shampoo that I would have liked to use. The book I had been waiting. Socks, candles, vitamins and once even those two pairs of sweaters I had never put on.

These were minor things which helped life to be manageable.

However, that habit ended when the packages began to go missing.
It had a gradual onset. An order that was not fulfilled here, a shipment that was not made in time there. In the beginning of working at a school, I did not even think about it. Of course things got lost. The couriers were also human beings and occasionally the system failed to work. I blamed it on bad luck, or, perhaps, porch pirates being on the prowl.

Nonetheless, I began to inspect my porch as an obsessive twitch, straightening up whenever I pulled onto the street hoping to spot the same proverbial cardboard box sitting before the welcome mat.

After nothing appeared, I would call up customer service and beg them as though I had lost a portion of myself.
“You say that you delivered it?”

May I see delivery slip?
Please repeat address are given?

I could hear my voice was confined more, more frantic about what was, in reality, little. Cat food. Shampoo. A dozen of socks.
But no then it was not small any more. I lost my brand-new Kindle and it was the last straw. That was a hurt.

I plunged into my Ring cam footage with the same obsession as a person seeking a ghost. And it did not give me anything. Nothing more than wind, and shadows and a raccoon here and there. The person stealing the packages was either smart or lucked out.

Or both.

Then at last something clicked.
Two weeks before the missing deliveries began a lady had moved into the place across the street. In her early 20s, she was fashionable even in joggers and her hair was twisted into a smooth braid.

Her name was learned to me as Tessa.

It was not a proper meeting. I made cookies by way of hospitality, chocolate chip, still warm in the plate. I rapped and paused and rapped again.

No answer.
I placed the plate on the small bench of hers. She failed to take it back.

Ever since, I could see her staring at me. Not rudely. Not in a friendly manner, either. Just… watching. Curious. Detached.

And perhaps, perhaps, criminal.

The time was getting on my nerves. The silence. The glances. And how that she never apparently had any deliveries herself. I never had seen any packages or any mails to be sent to her house.

I knew my logics that maybe I was being paranoid and I needed someone to blame. However, I could not get that feeling out of my head.

Therefore one night I thought I would keep awake and see.[R]

I cooked some ramen as dinner and wasted time waiting to forget. By and by it was too late. I switched off the light, got myself behind the sheer curtain at the front door and waited.
the sitting room was in darkness. My pulse came thumping, as a regular drum, one beat louder than another. Molly had nestled herself at the windowsill together with me, and was flicking her tail in silence.

It was at the very time of 1.47 a.m. that she came.

Tessa.

Her hood was on and she was wearing slippers. She crossed the street with an unreal feeling… or an automatic feeling. She made no survey. She did not have even a moment of hesitation.
She came right up to my porch, crouched down, snatched up my latest delivery as though it had been something that she was intending to collect and sauntered away.

Calm. Silent. Certain. I got my mind blown.

Not till I had seen her front door click back on her did I breathe.

I sat blinking, goggled at the plainness of the thing, a couple of seconds. She had not turned tail and run or crept away. She was not even turning to look behind her back. That… but that is what got me.
At that moment, I could have made a phone call to police. I could have shouted her name across the road and demanded some explanation and thrown a scene. But there was something in me which wanted something more direct.

Something poetic more…

Instead, I went ahead and got my laptop and put in DIY glitter bomb on YouTube.

The following evening I had my trap in readiness.
I filled an Amazon box with some spring-loaded dye pack and a pouch of the smelliest and stickiest blue pigment I could find at the craft store. It was of the juvenile, true: but it was also most satisfying.

I visualized the bursting of the cloud on to her outfit, her horror and her embarrassment. I pictured the lesson sinking in before sinking in the pigment.
I placed it on the porch at 11:45PM in the middle of the motion light.
It was at 1.45 a. m. I sat down, with a cup of tea. I required a calming down policy.

Gradually, sure enough, Tessa came. She had the same hoodie, the same slippers and the same pedestrian gait. I was not able to figure out whatever was happening to her.

How is it possible to be that self-confident? What about taking someone else stuff so easily?

She took it up, and went away.
And that night I slept very little, in glee. However the next morning, after I had peeped through the window, she was twiddling the locks of her car, humming. She had not a bit of blue on her, that is, of the stuff that I had brought with me. Perhaps the rig did not go off. Perhaps it was struck, or failed to go off.

I was not able to test it out first, amateur error.

There was a feeling of warmth in my breast.

I went out in a rush, and with adrenaline, raced out and grabbed her before she stepped into the driver seat.
Hey, said I.

“Uh, hey?” she wheeled, startled, yet with a sort of composedness.
Shall we have a say? I’m Jules.”

Your bet, what do you say? she sat blinking, scowling onto her face.

Did you run across some packages last night, did you?”
No and why should I? she asked.

I took my phone and called the police right in front of her. She looked on, with half-parted lips, and an inexpressible countenance. She never raised her voice and pleaded.

She simply appeared uncaring…. and lost?

Upon the arrival of the officers I explained the matter. The lost shipments, the Ring cam video I did not manage to save in time. The bait-box.
They heard it, nodded their heads and one of them turned to Tessa and requested her whether they could get a glimpse in her house.

She never made a flinch.

I have nothing to conceal, noticed she.

We after them into it.

Tessa lived in a clean house. There was a place to everything. It was only a minimalist living room with a cloth of cream color thrown across an armchair, and some few books scattered on the coffee table.
There was a kettle upon the stove, a whistling kettle. It had plants as well handing on hooks that were close to the window and their leaves were shaped green and waterfall.

Nothing in the space offered the impression of chaos. Nothing referred to as stolen.

When one of the officers raised the question whether they could see the basement, I realized something flash across her face.

I, said she softly, I… do not go down there.
It was not rebellion. It fear. Or shame maybe.

We started down with one officer. The other remained up stairs with us. I could hear the wooden steps creak as a metronome in an overly silent room. and pause.

A click. A basement light came on with a buzz.

You’d better come and see this, ma’am,’ the officer called up, quietly but cautiously, and the light which was on him in the roadway was out now, and he had closed the door behind himself.
I proceeded very slowly. It was cooler even, as though we had not been in the room since weeks.

Dominating the far wall was a row of shelving, a dozen packages on it stood in a row like they had been systematically arranged.

All mine.

I moved forward and I caught my breath. My kindle, socks, shampoo. The bait box too! All untouched. And just sit there, like they never mind anybody.
Tessa footsteps were behind me. Seeing them her complexion turned pale.

“I don’t… I forget having these?” she said in a whisper.

One of the officers inquired about her mildly whether she was okay. She made no reply. Tessa only flopped down on the bottommost step and began to sob.

I had thought I was through with this, she said as her hands shook in her lap. My physician recommended that I needed a change of scenery. This was the reason why I shifted…”
Wha–y, Tessa, what are you finished with? I said, in a less large voice than I had supposed.

Yawning, “Sleepwalking,” said she. I have not done it very long. But I feel that, although that is what my doctor said, it is stress of moving and being all by myself… I believe that it brought something out.”

She broke off and used the sleeve of her hoodie to remove the tears off her face.
I did not open anything! I did not know that they were here. I just… I cannot tell what reason I took them. It seems as though my brain absorbed them and placed them in a safe somewhere without me knowing.

I made nothing. I said nothing. I was simply standing in a basement belonging to my neighbor with a feeling of silence around me on all sides. I am not angry anymore, but at least I was. That anger was turning into something that I could not really define yet.
Confusion? Sadness? Both.

The police proposed to write everything down but I headed.
It is not, thank you, I said. This is sufficient. I know where my packages are… I can take it form here! It does not need to go to court.”

They issued her with a warning and requested her to meet up with a doctor. Then away they went.

I came home that night. I stopped all my deliveries temporarily. And on the couch I sat with Molly curled on my chest. I could think how Tessa could reconcile herself.

What do you do when you can not control a side of your brain? When there is no villain in the story, how to make peace? Only a serious human weakness.

She was not a robber. Tessa had an illness…

And strangely I no longer felt anger. Nothing more than an odd kind of ache.

The following week Tessa brought her a warm home made apple pie. It was warm and smelt good.
Much to her regret she said, eyes wet, “I am so sorry.”

I thought she was right.

There at the steps we spent an hour in conversation. It was not concerned with small talk. They were not pretending. It was simply the truth and open communication on stress, loneliness, about the burden of playing okay when you are coming apart on the inside.

She shared her teenager experiences with me, the beginning of the sleepwalking since her parents divorced, the period of disappearance after some time and the idea that now it was all over.
Until now.

She said: “I am back on therapy.” we are trying to figure out… what the trigger is… I must understand whether it is a feeling of loneliness. And I had one of those alarms that chirp when the door open. It frightens me up.”

That is fine improvement, Tess, said I.

Last week I told my mom all of it. She cried.”
I was watching her say it, as though words can break. She did not, however. She was making an attempt. And sometimes that is all there is.

I said to her: “You needn realize nothing.” I am glad that you told me.

So now on Sundays, when she comes over with popcorn, it is all like we have been watching true crime documentaries forever. She is scratching the chin of Molly until she is purring, and telling me to feed her when I forget about the time. Sometimes she brings a mason jar full of sunflowers with no note left on my doorsstep.

Naught but yellow petals and goodwill.
The packages disappear no longer.
Well, even though they might as well, I believe I would know where to start. And I really do not think I would be mad. About the way things turned out it is strange and beautiful. Approximately how confrontation led to connection.

Healing does not always come with naming someone or even with him or her paying. Sometimes it simply crosses the street, with a pie in its hand, and says it will like to stay a bit.

And you leave it to do so. Forgiveness is more silent than anger… but it is of quiet I have come to believe.
Having liked this story, here is another one I have |pulled out of my pocket (and that is the extent of it)

When the daughter-in-law of Carol starts to call her Mom out of the blue, after years of coldness, this development seems to be too good to be true. Carol slowly learns the true story behind the overwhelming attraction and is forced to choose what love is when love is lost.