My street extends for more than one linear mile, curving around and intersecting with the same road twice. For that reason, there are many people who live on my street whom I've never met. 
One of them knocked on my door on a recent rainy evening. "Are you the birthday girl?" she inquired, handing me an envelope addressed "BIRTHDAY GIRL - SIS" but with no other name on it.
The first number in the address could have been a 1, 4, or 7. I couldn't tell; my neighbor couldn't tell; the mail carrier couldn't tell. But the card didn't belong to me or to the neighbor who very kindly came out on a rainy evening to find the Birthday Girl and deliver her misdirected greetings.
We've had experiences with misdirected mail and other, geographically closer neighbors before--when friends mistakenly put the wrong number at the end of the address instead of the beginning. This means that the mail they've sent us winds up across the street. Now, we have a very unusual last name. There is no one else in this three-town zip code with a last name like ours, and these neighbors have all lived here longer than we have--more than ten years. Yet they don't bother walking across the street to pass along a misdirected letter or card; they simply write "Not at this address" on it and send it back through the mail.
I'm grateful to that far-down-the-street neighbor who went out of her wait to try to deliver that birthday card to the Birthday Girl. All neighbors should be so kind!
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