One of the last things we do each year to button up for the Winter is to plant garlic. We get the garlic from an area plant supply group, and if I can’t drive to get it, they will mail it. I no longer have a car, so this is especially helpful.

We live on top of a mountain, and sometimes this makes getting our mail delivered challenging. Delivery trucks can’t always get here in bad weather, our mailbox is an entire mile from our house, and the mailbox itself is too small to fit many of the packages we order.

To help delivery people (and us!) navigate these challenges, we put a wooden crate near the mailbox for larger packages. We also ask shippers, when possible, to add a note on any larger package to tell the driver to “leave it in the box.”

This year, the garlic arrived with an envelope containing what looked like a check. I opened the envelope—and discovered a small refund check. I must have overpaid for the garlic. I was excited to cash the check until I realized that maybe I’d overemphasized my delivery requirements. The computer that wrote the check didn’t make it out to “Sandra Snyder.”

Nope, it made my check out to “Leave In Box.”

—By Sandra Snyder of Westfield, VT