The Ukelele

The doorbell rang three times, and echoed into the eerie emptiness of the house. I stood up, and, making sure to step over the creaky floorboard near the mouth of the hall, I opened the door. Cautiously, I peered out into the night. The nearly empty street was lit only by the dull orange glow of the street lamps, and I could see nothing. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw bright yellow shoots of light, and turned around to see a green pickup truck, speeding away from my direction. I watched it curiously until it turned the bend and drove out of my sight.
My mind wandered back to the doorbell, and I now looked down. A brown box, neatly wrapped, stood near the steps that led out of my house. As I moved closer, I saw a small slip of paper was taped upon it. I picked it up and carried it back into the house. Squinting at the sudden glare of bright lights, I looked at the paper on the box. However, it only said my own name and address. On the side of the box in bold black letters read NONRETURNABLE. My curiosity overwhelmed my usual calm and safe-playing nature. As I started to rip open the packaging, I saw a shiny brown object. After opening the entire thing, I found myself staring at a ukulele. I thought back to the previous few days, but I couldn’t remember buying a ukulele. Perhaps, I had thought, it was sent on accident. “The mailman must have made a mistake,” I said out loud to reassure myself. But my name was on the slip of paper. I peered closer at the slip and saw that it was not printed by a post office, but rather was written in bright blue ink. I felt as if I had seen that handwriting before, and as I thought about it more, it seemed more and more familiar. Unfortunately, even after spending the night wracking my brain for who wrote like that, I found no answer.
As morning came, my determination that it was all a mistake faded. Still, I made a visit to the post office. But after telling my situation to the lady there, all she said was, “I don’t know, and I don’t care. For all I know, it’s an early Christmas present.” I stormed out of the office, enraged at the attitude I got. I realized that I had to solve this on my own. After reaching home, I phoned up every friend I could think of that might send me a ukulele. But by afternoon, I had gone through the phonebook with no answers and no hope. I decided I would stop bothering about it, and would just take it to the mall and sell it to an instrument store I knew.
By evening, I was back at home, lazily surfing channels on TV and muttering to myself about how lame the shows had become. Suddenly, I saw a news channel reporting about a local bomb blast. I listened more carefully, and realized that it was the very same mall that I had sold the ukulele at. Sure enough, the reporter stated that it appeared that the bomb detonated from the lower east wing of the mall, which was where the instrument shop was. A sick feeling spread through my body. “Was the ukulele the bomb? Was someone trying to kill me all along by planting a bomb in it?” I thought to myself, as I propped myself off the sofa and drove to the mall.
When I got there, I saw a maze of firefighters, police cars, and ambulances zooming back and forth, making sure that the locals stayed out. A police motioned for me to leave, so I rolled the window down and explained that the ukulele was sold by me, and could they please check if that was what detonated? The police scratched his scraggly chin, and then beckoned for me to follow him. Then he told me to wait, and that he would be right back. After a few minutes of anxiously sitting in the car, he came back, along with a crew of men, and a pair of handcuffs.