A Simple Mailbox Story

Someone knocked over Grandma’s mailbox.

My mother-in-law came home on a recent Tuesday afternoon to find that her mailbox, located in a neighbor’s front yard across the street, had been knocked flat.

Our first assumption was that the trash truck had knocked it over, but a neighbor claimed he had seen a passing driver hit it. (This neighbor is an undisputed oddball, not known for his honesty, so we’ll never really know what occurred.)

The mailbox and post were plastic, but inside the post was a two-by-four for strength and a four-foot length of heavy pipe for stability. Whoever hit the mailbox must have been traveling at some speed, because the pipe was bent ninety degrees where it entered the ground.

Shopping

Mom gave me cash and asked if I would purchase another mailbox for her, remove the existing wrecked one, and replace it with the new one. Being a dutiful son-in-law, I willingly agreed.

Have you shopped for mailboxes and mailbox posts at Home Depot? There are approximately 257 million possible combinations of posts and boxes. I got the box I thought was best, and then found a post that was designed “to work with all common mailbox designs.” I took them home and started to assemble them.

There was no way to get that mailbox to fit on that post. It just didn’t work.

Sigh.

So I took the mailbox back and got another. This one was a more common style, “regular,” and would “fit on nearly any post.”

Assuming all would be well, I took the assembled post and new mailbox (still boxed) to Mom’s.

Replacing

The first thing to do was to dig out the old bent post. I was nervous about this, not knowing how deeply it was buried and if I would run into concrete.

It was buried only a couple of feet deep. Yes, there was concrete, but after digging around it for a while, I was able to remove it. I lugged the bent post attached to the heavy concrete blob back behind the garage and left it there because I know Mom never goes back there, so she will never know. Unless she reads this blog.

Now to unbox the new mailbox, attach it to the post, and put the post in the ground. “I’m almost done!” I thought.

The screw holes on the top of the “regular” mailbox designed to “fit on nearly any post” did not align with any of the screw holes on the top of the “regular” post that was designed “to work with all common mailbox designs.”

I determined that I was going to make it work. I was not going to return another mailbox to Home Depot! What if I got the same clerk and she remembered me?

“Didn’t you return a mailbox just yesterday?”

“Uh, yeah.”

With a self-righteous smirk: “Having a little trouble, are we?”

No, I was not going to put myself in that humiliating position.

Thankfully, my brother-in-law, Mark, arrived, and we decided to drill new holes in the box to mount it. Fine idea, but we had no drill. Mark lives pretty close by, so he went home and brought back his cordless drill.

Mark takes better care of his tools than I do. I live in a world where I imagine that for home fix-it projects, I will never have to use a tool more complicated than a hammer, a screwdriver, or pliers. I can locate those easily. My drill? A T-square? My miter box? A rasp? They’re either in the shed or in the bottom drawer of my dresser. And if they aren’t in the bottom drawer of my dresser, I’d rather go buy new ones than root through that disorganized mess of a shed.

So Mark arrived with his cordless drill, all charged and ready to go with a variety of drill bits organized close by.

I really need to try that system someday.

He drilled the holes, we put the screws in, and we planted the post firmly in the ground—which involved a lot of digging, transporting, tamping, and stamping of dirt. But we got it done.

I went home in a completely inexcusable state of exhaustion.

Shopping Again

Later that night it struck me that we had not put Mom’s house number on the mailbox. Her number is simple: it’s just “4.” So before work this morning, I headed back to Home Depot. I knew exactly where to go, since the numbers are right next to the mailboxes, and I had plenty of experience on that aisle.

Every conceivable symbol for written communication in English hung there, including ampersands and fractions. Shoot, they probably even had a colon—or at least a semicolon, I don’t know. I didn’t look that closely.

Yes, every conceivable symbol for written communication in English hung there. Except the numeral 4.

Gone.

Is 4 for some reason the most popular digit when it comes to house numbers? I couldn’t believe that. All I knew was that I wasn’t asking much. Just one 4. That’s all.

Thankfully, I was able to find a 4 in a larger size and was soon on my way.

On the way out, I succumbed to a temptation I often succumb to in Home Depot. I stopped at a cooler and bought a twenty-ounce bottle of Dr Pepper. I have done this so often that, when I spot the HD checkout lanes, I start yearning for a Dr Pepper. That Pavlov guy was no dummy.

As I looked at the price, I couldn’t help thinking how inconsistent it was of me to purchase a twenty-ounce bottle of Dr Pepper for $2.38 when I won’t pay over two bucks for a two-liter bottle of the same stuff. But the little bottles are so fun, so easy to sip on while driving or while at one’s desk at work. They make you look cool. Drinking directly out of a two-liter bottle while standing at your work desk definitely does not look cool.

Smiling

When I shop, I often like to chat a bit with the checkout clerks to see if I can make them smile and brighten their day a bit. My checker this morning was a Latina with short, curly, graying hair, a tired expression, and a careworn face. I felt a bond with her right away.

Thinking of the foolishness of my Dr Pepper purchase and hoping to pique her interest, I put my items on the counter and said, “You know, there’s something wrong with me!”

She didn’t bat an eye. “Yah, me too,” she replied flatly.

I burst out laughing. Then I explained why I’d said that—how silly it was to pay $2.38 for such a small bottle.

She replied, “You know what, when I eat cold cuts, I get a terrible headache.”

“I’m sorry! Did you have cold cuts this morning?”

“No, but I can’t have the sugar, the brown sugar, the brown rice, the brown beans. They make me sick. Everything else is bad because it’s so processed. They put the hormones in. So what else is there but cold cuts, and they give me a headache!?”

I agreed. “And if you buy organic stuff, it costs more than the processed stuff!”

“I know!”

“So they charge you more to leave stuff out!”

“That’s right, it’s crazy!”

I gathered up my bag with my two 4s and my bottle of Dr Pepper. “Well, I hope you feel better and have a great day!”

“You too!” she said. “Have a great day!” She was smiling, and so was I.

Copyright 2023 by Steven Nyle Skaggs