Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas Read Free Page A

packages. Arthur was at the wheel. He had worked with UPS for over eighteen years. Arthur never thought he’d be a UPS driver. He studied art history in college, and his specialty was the Italian Renaissance era. He became a university professor for several years and then discovered he could make more money driving a UPS truck. In between deliveries, Arthur and I talked about literature, art, opera, and PBS. His route took us through rural areas and housing developments where all the modest two-story red-bricked houses looked alike.
    That first day, I jumped in and out of the truck over one hundred times for over twelve hours. When I got home, I collapsed. I couldn’t remember ever working so hard or ever feeling so sore. I drifted into a deep sleep, wondering if I would be able to get up and do it all over again the next day.
    Somehow, I did. I got up day after day, and by the end of the week, it got easier.
    Dogs would chase us, and sometimes Arthur threatened them with the big stick he kept in the back. But for the most part, people greeted us with big smiles and open arms. I was totally into being the “UPS Lady.” People knew if I knocked at their door that I came bearing gifts. I brought people happiness. And that was enough to make me happy, too.
    My second week, I was split up between two drivers. In the mornings I rode with Pete through the blue-collar, working-class neighborhoods. Pete had just turned twenty-six. I looked at him and thought, My God, I could be his mother! He was polite and protective and kept calling me “Ma’am,” which irritated me. When he started to treat me like his mother and took an eighty-five-pound package out of my hands, that’s when I’d had enough. I had to put a stop to it for my own self-respect and in the name of sisterhood. I needed to prove to him I wasn’t some middle-aged wimp, so I grabbed that eighty-five-pound package right out of his twenty-six-year-old hands, whisked it off, and delivered it, shattering Pete’s stereotype about women being weak and helpless. After we’d cleared up this issue, every morning between deliveries, he’d talk, I’d listen, and then he’d ask me for advice. Pete would actually turn off his heavy metal music and listen closely to me, like I was some wise, old sage.
    During my last week, TJ was at the wheel. Having been a UPS driver for over twenty-two years, TJ had seniority and therefore drove the best route—the most beautiful areas and upscale neighborhoods in Nashville. We’d enter private roads and driveways with no-trespassing signs and find ourselves on incredible estates with acres and acres of rolling hills dotted with running horses. Or we’d drive up one of those mysterious, long, and winding private driveways that led up to the top of a mountain, and there would stand a tremendous home that was right out of the pages of Architectural Digest, built from imported wood and custom-tinted glass, with Italian marble floors and an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the middle of the foyer. I was a tourist in a town where I had lived for thirteen years, discovering places I’d never known existed. I felt like I was traveling in a foreign country, seeing things for the first time, with all my senses geared up—taking it all in. Every day I was in awe of the beauty, in awe of the moment. For the first time in a long time, I was living life in the present tense and enjoying what it had to offer. And TJ was my fellow companion and travel guide.
    TJ was a year younger than me. He told me his wife didn’t understand him and that he adored his two precious little daughters. He beamed when he showed me the photo of two beautiful little blonde girls smiling at the camera. As we drove along the black-posted fence of a picture-perfect Tennessee walking horse farm, TJ told me horrifying stories of his time spent in Vietnam. There was the army buddy who died in his arms, the