I'm a firm believer in digital convenience. Given the choice, I'll always pick a parcel locker over waiting around for a courier. So when my colleague's brand-new novel finally came out, I ordered without hesitation — and I ordered three copies. One for me, two as gifts for close friends. The story felt like exactly the kind of book that needed to be shared.
When the pickup notification arrived, I headed straight to the locker. I typed in the code. Nothing happened. The compartment stayed shut, the screen froze, and no amount of trying again made any difference. I called customer service, they attempted a remote reset, but the lock had simply given up. I gave them my address for home delivery, accepted the situation with a shrug, and went home. I still had a few chapters left in my current book — by the time I finished, the new one would probably arrive. I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn't.
The phone call I almost didn't answer
I was in the middle of making dinner when my phone rang — an unknown number. It was nearly six in the evening, and my first instinct was to ignore it. Something made me pick up anyway.
A warm, friendly voice I didn't recognise spoke from the other end. She was standing at the parcel locker. While collecting her own package, the compartment next to hers had suddenly swung open — and inside were my books, with my name and phone number on the label. She hadn't just walked past. She'd looked up my number and called me.
Because she couldn't close the compartment again, she told me she'd wait — right there, by the machine — until I arrived, so my package wouldn't be left unattended. She had absolutely no obligation to do any of this. She could have walked away and nobody would have blamed her. There are cameras everywhere, sure, but that's not the point.
If she hadn't been that kind, someone could have taken those books and I'd have spent the next week on hold with customer service, chasing a refund I might never have seen.
What we give, we get back
I grabbed my keys and rushed out the door, and somewhere between my kitchen and the street, I started smiling. Because the whole thing had a strange, almost poetic quality to it.
Inside that package were three copies of my colleague's novel — a book about finding your inner strength and how women can genuinely support one another in everyday life. And there she was — a complete stranger — standing in front of a parcel locker in the evening, simply because she didn't want my things to go unprotected.
We hear so often that people have become indifferent, that everyone's too busy, too distracted, too wrapped up in their own lives to notice anyone else. Moments like this one push back against that, quietly but firmly.
We exchanged a quick thank you, and then we both went on with our evenings. That was it. No dramatic exchange, no long conversation. But walking home with those books tucked under my arm, I felt something I hadn't expected: a quiet, genuine sense of hope.
Sometimes it's not the grand gestures that remind you the world isn't so bad. Sometimes it's just a stranger who decides to wait a few extra minutes — for someone she'll probably never see again.
