"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just—"
Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.
"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?" He was looking at a small box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word: MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.
Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object. A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.
"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no wire."
"I don't know," Ann said. "Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally—"
He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. "They must have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment."
He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again. Sally was still in his arms.
"That's the doorbell, I think," he said, looking at the next object. It had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug for a wall socket.
"That's funny," Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment. "It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of the doorbell."