“Are you married to Barbara,” the female voice asks on the phone.
“Uh, yes,” I reply. “Who is this?”
Heather tells me she lives in the Tri-Cities area, at least five hours away from us.
And she has a package with our name on it.
That her father-in-law has found it while driving on Interstate 82, alongside the road in a black plastic bag. It’s from my wife’s mother and father-in-law. There are only our names with no address.
Heather decides to use the Internet to try and find us. One search result said I was a publisher of something. Another one listed me as a survivor in an obituary.
Somehow she finds my old home phone number in Albany, which proves to be disconnected. Still not one to give up, she finally locates me at work.
Apparently, it’s a good thing I’m not on the run. Because of my trail left all over the Internet, I would have to enter the witness protection program or something.
And how did the package end up there? Family members were driving home with several items loaded in the pack of their truck. Despite their best efforts to secure the load, our package had a mind of its own.

7 comments
LaurieBee says:
May 18, 2012
That's funny! What a nice lady to bother to track you down!
happy2B@home says:
May 18, 2012
SO! What was in the package? What a tenacious lady! I wonder if she is a census taker.
One time I tracked my husband down on a business trip. He was at the Bangor International Airport in Maine. The rather nasty counter agent who answered the phone grilled me on how I got the number. She said, in her very thick Maine accent "How did you get this numba? I can't even give this numba to my mutha!" She set the phone down while she paged my husband. Imagine his our surprise, he was standing at the counter at the time! He still calls me a witch. Truth is the airline connected me and it was just lucky timing! Hey, wait! Maybe he is calling me a witch for other reasons!
Jen_R says:
May 18, 2012
Yes, what was in the package?
happy2B@home says:
May 18, 2012
Mike! What was in the package!?!
IsThisMikeOn says:
May 18, 2012
My apologies. I just came back from vacation and saw these comments. They were homemade Christmas presents from Grandma Margaret that would have been very difficult and time-consuming to replace. She took the time crochet Kleenex box covers in the form of a couch for each family member.
happy2B@home says:
May 18, 2012
Priceless!
Charlotte says:
May 18, 2012
That was one super persistent nice lady. In other news, I'm moving 5 hours away from stalking you? SWEET!