A Christmas microwave meal for one

I’m a delivery driver for a supermarket. It’s not the most glamorous job in the world but it pays the rent. I have got a wife, and two kids to take care of so I can’t be too fussy. I often wish I had worked a bit harder in school, but what’s done is done. I was never top of the class anyway, never been a brainy sort of person, but if everyone was brainy who would deliver shopping? I often make my job more interesting by glancing at the items as I pack the van and then imagining what the person will be like based on their shopping list. I see if I’m right when they come to the door to receive their shopping. Sometimes my imaginings are very accurate. For example, the time someone ordered two bags of food for human consumption and five bags of cat food. It was as I imagined; I only took the customer’s food into the hall way, but even with seeing that small amount of the house I spotted 12 cats. The lady was very jolly with an old jumper covered in cat hair. She offered me a cup of tea, unfortunately when I lifted it up to drink there was a cat hair floating on the surface that I had to fish out. Another example is when I looked in one of the bags I was delivering and saw various ready meals, a packet of party sausages, and lots and lots of packets of Durex ‘Close Fit’ condoms. For those of you who don’t know, ‘Close Fit’ is what Durex calls their small condoms, because their customers would probably not like the word small connected with their crown jewels. ‘I’ll bet this one has a very expensive car on the drive way’ I thought to myself. I came to an old terraced house that had been converted into two flats, with a new Audi parked outside so there was a 50% chance I was right. A very short, balding, overweight middle-aged man wearing an expensive looking leather jacket came to the door. I told my mates in the Coach and Horses pub on the Saturday night after and they had a laugh. About three months later I was again at the Coach and Horses. The same man was at a table next to us. He was presumably on a date, because he was talking non-stop about his horrible ex-wife to some poor woman who barely got a word in edgeways. My best mate Steve was very drunk unfortunately. He went over to the man’s table, explained to the woman what I’d seen when I delivered the shopping and told her not to expect too much as far as size was concerned if she decided to go home with him. The man stood up and punched Steve in the face, so Steve punched him back. A fight ensued and the police got called. Steve was arrested for fighting and being drunk and disorderly, had a night in a cell at the police station, and ended up in a magistrate’s court. He only got community service luckily. Unfortunately the girl he was going out with at the time dumped him because he’d promised her the week before he would stop fighting when drunk. I think that was the only negative thing that has ever happened due to my hobby of looking in other people’s shopping bags.

The most positive thing resulting from my hobby occurred last Christmas. I was delivering shopping on Christmas Eve where I saw something no supermarket delivery driver ever wants to see. A Christmas dinner for one had been on this poor customer's shopping list. I imagined what the person would be like, elderly and alone. I arrived at a house that was only one street away from my own, and it did not take long to realise that my fears were correct. The property was a bungalow with an over drown garden littered with kitsch ornaments and garden gnomes. There was a ramp with a hand rail in front of the door. A white haired man opened the door. He had some of the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

‘I’m sorry for being nosey but I could not help spotting that a Christmas dinner for one was on your shopping list’ I said.

‘I’m afraid I’m on my own for Christmas’ said the elderly gentleman.

‘I’m so sorry to hear that, there might be places you can go, like charities for communal Christmas dinners’ I said.

‘I probably would if I could get there’ he said. 'I struggle to get around much. I can’t drive anymore. Thank you for your concern though. Would you like a cup of tea?’ It was my last delivery before I finished my shift for Christmas, so I accepted. The gentleman introduced himself as George. He explained how his wife and two children were both dead. His daughter was sadly killed in a car accident in her thirties, along with her husband and unborn child. His son had been the light of his and his wife’s life for many years but he had been born with Down’s syndrome. People with Down’s Syndrome have a life expectancy of only 55- 60 years, and so last year George had lost his 58 year old son and his 85 year old wife. George had been an only child, so apart from occasional phone calls from his wife’s sister in Australia, he had nobody. George had Parkinson’s disease, and severe arthritis so he struggled to get out to meet new people. He showed me his photo album, it was sad to see him now compared to the tall muscular man he had been. George had even been in the army and talked to me about his time fighting in the second world war.

‘Would you like to come to my house on Christmas day?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure I’d be able to get there’ said George.

‘I’m round the corner, I’ll come at nine and give you a hand’ I said. George looked as though he were trying to hold back tears.

‘I can’t find any way to thank you enough’ he said.

‘You can thank me by never putting a Christmas dinner for one on your shopping list again. Don’t be a stranger, we live round the corner!’

We had a wonderful Christmas and George loved holding my newborn baby daughter. Sadly my wife and I both grew up with absent fathers who have never bothered much with us or our kids. So my kids did not have any Grandfathers until the toddler decided to call George ‘Granddad George’, right in the middle of Christmas dinner. My son was 3 so I think he genuinely thought George was his Granddad come to visit at Christmas. We did not correct him, and George looked very happy. George spent the rest of the day playing with my son. Every day after, my son would ask, ‘When is my Granddad coming to play with me?’ so we ended up having Granddad George to visit several times a week. My son did ask when he got much older if George was my Dad or his mum’s Dad. When it was explained that George was neither, he said ‘it doesn’t matter, he’s still my Granddad!” Granddad George lived another six years, before passing away at the age of 91. By that time my daughter was old enough to interact with him too and both kids were very upset to lose their ‘Granddad’. However they still have wonderful memories, and my son, who is now a teenager, was so inspired by George’s stories of being in the army he has mentioned that he might like to join himself one day.

Since George passed we have all started volunteering for a charity in our spare time, which supports older people who are lonely and isolated.

I’ll never forget George. It’s strange how the simple act of noticing what someone had in their shopping order ended up with my kids having a wonderful Granddad. He may not have been one by blood but he was in all the ways that matter the most.