Surprises from Ireland! | Ecency

Have you ever had one of those mornings when you wake up for no reason? Your body is still exhausted, but you feel like there was a purpose in why you woke up. You start wandering around your house looking for clues as to why you might have been woken up out of a sound sleep well before you should have or wanted to.

You check all the places that need checking because you know if you do not check, you will lay in bed thinking that you should get up and check those places just in case you didn't, and those places might explain why you are awake when you do not care to be?

The more you wonder why you are awake, the more you want to go back to your warm bed and snuggle under the covers for a few or twenty more hours. You become a tad grumpy on top of everything else.

Now you are half asleep, wandering around your house looking for signs of any object out of place, grumpy, and a tad restless while daydreaming of your cozy bed, yet you can not quite get yourself to go back to sleep because you have not solved the mystery of why you are awake yet.

You let those that need to know that you are going back to sleep. Now, this must take some level of stress off of you. How about enough for you to sleep? Sadly no, your brain is still searching for answers and only running into more questions. This differs from how you saw Tuesday as you headed off to sleep.

You wander to your front door and back to see if the mail has arrived yet. You know it is too early for it to have been delivered, but you go look anyway. Nope, nada, nothing waiting for you yet. You glance at the clock and realize as long as you are awake, you should stay up until the mail does come.

You are expecting a package of medication. While it is unimportant to anyone else, staying awake for another hour is best, so your prescription doesn't peak out of the mailbox most of the day.

You then realize two games you like to play have significant updates today. You glance again at the clock, do the math, and know you have a few hours before those announcements/updates will be ready. You log on and off both games to check if one of the game developers forgot how to read a clock and started the update early. They didn't. You are left looking at standard landing pages on both games that you are too grumpy to want to play.

More wandering and refrigerator door opening and closing happens over the next twenty minutes. One of your wanders takes you back to the front door, and the mail truck is in front of your house! Perfect! Sleep will be coming soon!

Still in my robe and pajamas, I stick my hand out the front door to grab the mail and plastic bag of medication when I see the dreaded pink slip of paper! Oh! Ohhhhhh!

You quickly scan the area around the mail truck, looking for the mailman. You are praying you are not too late! You do NOT want to have to go pick up your package at the post office in two days when you are right here now! Thank goodness, as you are scanning the road looking for the dull blue uniform, you see the mailman's bright red hair.

You wave your arms and shout MAMAM! and hope she turns around. You do not want to run across the street in your robe and jammies. She turns with a smile and asks if you would like your package. You smiled and said Yes, please!! It is all the way from Ireland!! She smiles back and says she knows as she pulls the most enormous box I ever saw out of the back of her mail truck!

I set the mail down so I could sign for the box. The mailman tells me to be careful as the package is pretty heavy. She was correct! I was flabbergasted. How can a small box of tea weigh this much?? Little did I know what was in store for me.

To backtrack a tiny bit, a few months ago, @TheHive, who in this post will be referred to as Jan, and I was talking. He had said he was off to make some tea and would be back in a few. When he returned, I mentioned that I did not care for tea. I would drink a glass of it, but that was about it. Jan explained to me that American tea is awful. How Irish tea, you can not see the bottom of your cup when it is ready.

Now I believed him, and I didn't. I figured the tea was just a tad darker than American tea. But not seeing the bottom of your tea cup sounded more like coffee. Jan assured me it did not taste like coffee but tea. He then said he would send me some to try someday. I said perfect! And we went on gabbing away.

I know how expensive it is to ship things overseas. I expected a letter with a few tea bags stuck in the envelope to test the tea. Boy, was I wrong! I received a box so well packaged that if it was lost at sea and washed up on a desert Island one hundred years from now, the tea bags would still be fresh and dry.

Thank goodness for me, that didn't happen. I can not even tell the person stranded on the desert island one hundred years from now that I am sorry they did not get to taste the tea. I know, but...I can not lie.

I waddled the package to my kitchen counter. I grabbed a sharp knife and spent fifteen minutes trying to get the outer packaging off. I was laughing the whole time. I had never, ever seen a package sealed so tightly before. Once the outer packaging was off, it stood up by itself. Now it looked like I had two boxes! I laughed some more!

I wrote to Jan and told him the package had arrived. Did he want to see me open it? If so, I need a few minutes to change. Once dressed and not looking homeless, I called Jan up and slit open the box to see what was all inside!!

One by one, I took each package of candy out and held it up for Jan to tell me what it was. The first piece of candy I tried was a Milky Minty. It is a white-colored taffy-like candy that tastes so freaking good. It has just the perfect amount of mint flavor and chewiness. It fills your mouth with a yummy taste that is not too sweet. When you finish the chewy goodness, you want to grab another one.

Europian Chocolate, I had heard about. How it was richer in flavor than American chocolate. I set all the chocolate in one pile to be eaten slowly, like Charlie in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory. Later on, when trying the Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramell, I did not do as well as Charlie. I did catch a good buzz from all the caffeine in the chocolate!

Pulling bag after bag of candy out, I wondered where the tea would be. There was a large box inside the huge outer box, but I figured? I do not know what I thought was there, but tea wasn't on my radar. Finally, pulling out the last candy, all that was left was the other large box. I finally took a good look at the box inside the box and read what it said.

SIX HUNDRED BAGS OF TEA!

I have no idea what I said after that. I am still trying to wrap my head around being the owner of 596 bags of tea.

I did get up and turned on my kettle to heat some water to try the tea. Jan explained that if I liked it, of which he had no doubt I would, he didn't want to tease me with a few bags of the best tea ever made.

I slowly filled my cup and stuck the tea bag in. With a fork, I swirled the water a bit and waited. While talking to Jan some more, I glanced down and saw the darkest tea I ever saw. I said something intelligent like OMGosh, you were right! I can not see the bottom of my cup!

Eager to taste the tea, I burned my tongue, but the yummy warm goodness was worth it. I had never tasted anything like it in my life. It did not have that drying aftertaste that American tea has. It was smooth and comforting from the first to the last sip. I was overjoyed!

I now have a box full of candy to explore and another box of yummy goodness to drink as much as I want because Jan was right! More than two bags would have been needed.

I promised Jan I would not thank him anymore for the beautiful present I received, so I will not. I am blessed with the friends I have made over the years on the blockchain. Jan and I go way back to the beginning of PYPT, talking with @JackMiller and much more. Thank You, Jan, for being my friend!

This true story is why I always say Hive is filled with magic if you look with open eyes.