Who or what were you expecting? Where? Why? Why is it important? Does it matter if it gets there on time? What happens after it turns up? Oh, the anticipation! How does your character feel about it?

It could be an object, or a result of an exam or a test or the result of a match.

Of course – expecting a baby… there’s plenty of material there… it might not necessarily be yours, but tell us what it means to you or your character. Is it welcome / unwelcome? If you imagine the pre-antibiotic times when people had large families because so many children didn’t make it to adulthood. What did the mothers and fathers think when they heard their 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 15^th child was on the way.

Or, of course, the flipside is – was it something unexpected?