“Is that annoying for you?” I ask as I take the pizza out of the Betty and begin to slice. “I mean, they always have so many boxes.”

The ordering goes by family size, and with eight children to my five, Chani Feinberg’s in the next bracket; she gets a lot more groceries than I’m entitled to. She asked me this favor last week as well, and I was amazed by the number of boxes Avrumi had come home with.

“It’s fine, I’m there anyway. But can you have Tzvi come out to help me unload? The Feinbergs get a lot.”

Good, I’m happy he’s okay with it. I like Chani Feinberg, and I’m happy to do this favor for her. She’s the one who introduced me to the ordering in the first place; the first few years of joining the kollel, I was too intimidated by the detailed order form. Which was really a waste, but hey, better late than never.

And Chani was so grateful and apologetic over the phone when she called yesterday to ask if we could pick up her stuff.

“I totally get it if it’s too hard, I always say the timing couldn’t be worse,” she’d said with a laugh.

Totally. Tuesday night, 6 p.m., exactly the end of second seder, which makes sense until you remember that 6 p.m. is also supper, bath, and homework time. Forget Avrumi coming home late on Tuesdays, after all the shlepping he’s done, I always feel bad that he’s also putting the perishables away before eating.

“But my husband started this new program with Gersh, and I really want it to work,” Chani had said.

“Hmmm?” I was curious to hear. Gersh is Chani’s almost-bar mitzvah son, and I know school is a struggle for him.

“Yeah, Gersh goes to the kollel straight from school and he learns with my husband there. It’s between sedorim so it’s quiet, and the rebbi had this great idea to learn the next day’s material early like a review in class instead of the opposite. It seems to be going well. It really gives Gersh such a boost. Anyway, so yes, thanks a mil.”

I mean, it’s Avrumi who’s doing all the hard work, but sure, yay me.

I turn back to my supper, loading the next pie into the Betty and calling the kids to come eat. And then it’s typical supper chaos at the Sharfs. You know how it goes, “She’s sitting too close, he looked at me, I called that piece,” and I decide it’s high time I change into a tichel.

I’m having déjà vu. No other way to describe it.

Tuesday night, and I’m coming home late again. At least supper is ready this time — spaghetti and meatballs — and Shifra is in a great mood because she has a friend over. So win-win. I’m just getting nervous about Avrumi — ahh, how the imagination goes wild — when I remember he’s at grocery pickup.

“Tzvi,” I call out.

He comes meandering in, Chinese yo-yo flashing.

“No Diablo in the kitchen, “I say automatically. “Hi, Tzvi, how you doing? Please go out to meet Ta with the groceries. He’s getting Feinbergs’ order, so it’s a lot.” Yes, Chani had asked for the third week in a row.

He performs a complicated trick involving his chin, remembers what I said about the kitchen, lays his toy gingerly on the small counter, gives me a little salute, and heads outside to help Avrumi.

I smile; he’s a cute kid.

Shifra’s friend leaves, everyone washes up, and I’m just buckling Yonason into his highchair when Avrumi and Tzvi come in balancing a very heavy-looking stack of boxes.

‘“Omigosh!” I jump up to help him, he bends down, and the top few go sliding gracefully to the kitchen floor.

“Well, that was my exercise for the week,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “Tell Feinberg their delivery is here.”

I pour him a cup of cold seltzer and text Chani Feinberg to send her husband over.

I’ll admit it. The excitement of doing the Feinbergs a favor starts wearing off pretty quickly. Is it watching my husband do all the schlepping? His wisecracks about weightlifting? Or Tzvi’s obvious annoyance at being asked to schlep the Feinbergs’ boxes when “Gersh Feinberg is always telling everyone how strong he is. Let him prove it, okay?” And then there’s late bedtime, made later somehow by the Feinbergs’ boxes.

At one point, I suggest leaving the boxes in the car, but Avrumi reminds me that he has to take Tzvi to his tutor and the Feinbergs don’t always pick their stuff up right away. Good for them. More schlepping for my men.

And then Chani’s texts start going from, “We sooo appreciate it, do you think your husband can do our pickup again?” to “They changed pickup location. It’s now at 12 Oakley Drive at 7.”

At first, I think Chani’s doing me a favor, letting me know where the new location is. I think about how cute it is that she thinks she still has to take care of me. I’m also on the kollel list, I know the updates about the location. They have a robo-text going around.

But then we’re at a N’shei event, talking about food prices — what else — when I hear Chani say, all casually, “Oh, Mindy does our pickup, so the new time isn’t a big deal for us.”

“Oh, wow, Mindy, that’s so nice of you!”

Heads are turning to me in appreciation and Rachel jokingly asks if we’d do hers as well. I mean, I hope it’s a joke. We are not turning 39 Aspen Court into the latest Zichron Dovid food distribution site, with Avrumi and Tzvi doing all that schlepping and everyone knocking at my door during bedtime. No siree.

But I’m confused.

Mindy does our pickup.

Really? This is no longer a favor, but an expectation?

How presumptuous can you get?

The longer I sit on it, the more annoyed I get.

But I still pass on her requests to Avrumi, who’s been very mild about the whole thing.

“I’m going anyway,” he says, shrugging. “And Moish is a busy guy, I’m happy to help him.”

The man is truly selfless. Which, you know, is the reason I married him, but feeling like the bad guy is somehow making me feel more strongly here.

The Chanukah order form has all this extra stuff — chocolate coins, little gifts for the kids, and randomly a great brand of non-iron shirts, so this week’s order is larger than usual, and I trip over a stray box as I come down from giving Avigail her 47th drink after bedtime. I’m about to get annoyed at Shifra and Tzvi for not putting everything away, when I see the sticker. Feinberg.

I feel a stab of annoyance and check my watch: 8:30 p.m. Why are Feinbergs’ boxes still littering my front hall at 8:30?

I kick the box to where the others are and go into the kitchen to clean up, trying to calm myself. Why can’t I be like Avrumi, who’s actually doing the work here? So Chani’s boxes are in my front hall. They’re not hurting anyone; what’s my problem?

I manage for about 20 minutes, but then I bypass them on my way back upstairs to switch a laundry load. And I lose it.

Can you pick up your stuff by 9:15? I text Chani.

And then I respond to her call with a, “Sorry, can’t talk now,” automated text. And at 9:15, I transfer her boxes to the front porch. I feel like a worm.

I meet Chani the next morning as I’m rushing to work.

“Thanks a million,” she says, with her trademark Chani smile. “I tried to reach you last night, but you couldn’t talk, and we were out last night until late. The boxes on the porch were great, so we didn’t have to bother you. I really appreciate it.”

She didn’t have to bother me? When the whole arrangement is one big bother? With my husband and son moonlighting as her personal deliverymen? And my home serving as her warehouse?

Last week Shifra accidentally opened one of Chani’s boxes and started getting excited about the chocolate-covered rice cakes that were inside.

“Maaa! Thank you! You’re the best! Thank you so much, I love these. I call them for school tomorrow.”

I’d had no idea what she was talking about, and then she’d started squealing again.

“OMG! Also fruit leather! What happened, Ma? Did you win the lottery?”

I’d come over to investigate and saw a box filled with all kinds of chocolate and snacks that I’d never order.

“That’s not our box,” I’d informed my daughter. “Please close it back up before anyone takes anything from it.”

Cue Shifra’s pouting the rest of the night. Apparently, I don’t care about her, and certainly not her social standing. If only I could be like Mrs. Feinberg, who I’d always said was such a good person, Shifra would have more friends and a better life, plus,  Penina Landau would’ve invited her over by now. Yes, Penina Landau’s invitations are our new barometer.

Now I give Chani a tight-lipped smile, and then I realize she’s not done.

“Why don’t you just stick the boxes on the porch from now on? I feel bad that they’re taking up all that space in your house every week.”

I manage to nod and squeak out something about being late to work. I get into my car and turn on the ignition before realizing that there’s no way I can drive like this. I’m literally shaking.

Okaaaay. So now I’m meant to leave everything on my front porch so Chani doesn’t have to feel the favor and thank me for it. We are at a new level.

Talking it over with my coworker Michal Rudman is very validating.

“The chutzpah!” she says over her coffee. “She just, like, expects you to do all her schlepping for her? And what are you, a delivery service that you leave it outside for her to come at her convenience? Mindy, that’s a boundary breach.”

But the longer she goes on, the more confused I get. I start defending Chani.

“I don’t know,” I say, frowning. “Chani’s such a good person and she has a lot going on. She has a huge family and she works full-time. I find it hard enough to manage, I don’t know how she does it.”

“I do,” Michal retorts. “By leaning on you.”

But does she lean on me? I lean on her, too. She’s always been my go-to neighbor for everything from a cup of sugar to toilet training to preteen moodiness. She’s smart and practical and down-to-earth; from the minute she welcomed me into the kollel and the neighborhood, she was my role model. Honestly, if she makes it work because she knows when she needs to take a favor from someone, is that a bad thing? I resolve to get over my pettiness.

It works for two weeks.

And then I’m just taking a screaming Avigail out of the bath when I hear a text come in.

I usher her into her room, towel her off, and dress her in her pajamas before I get to my phone to see the new message.

“Hey how are you?? Do you think your husband can drop the pickup at my house tomorrow; mine is going to be at a family sheva brachos, and I’d love to get the groceries away earlier.”

And maybe I’m overtired or overstimulated or just a really terrible person, but I find myself writing back: “Sorry, my husband can’t do pickup tomorrow. Hatzlachah!”

Later that night, when I tell him his services are no longer needed, he looks surprised.

“Oh, Moish was just telling me how much he appreciates it,” he says. “I guess he didn’t know that his wife made new arrangements.”

I feel like the absolute smallest person in the world.

But when a favor’s not a favor but an expectation, when boundary lines are crossed so many times that you can barely see where they once were, are you really supposed to keep going?

Maybe that’s the level of true giving, where you get nothing — not even thanks — in return, but for me it just feels one level too hard.

Contribute to this column as a Second Guesser! Email your response, including your name as you want it to appear, to familyfirst@mishpacha.com with Second Guessing in the subject.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 969)