August 06th, 2020

Poor sad little accident prone mailbox.  I'm not sure why this keeps happening but it does.  People keep whacking into our mailbox and then sneaking away.  Sigh.

This isn't the first time, y'know.

When we bought the house there was no mailbox.  I suppose the previous owners had a post office box instead. So one of the first things we did, once we signed on the dotted line and the house was ours, was to buy and install a new mailbox.

We took some time and put a lot of thought and consideration into the purchase.  Once selected, Tim did some research on where precisely the post office wanted the box to be before digging the hole.  He made sure that the mailbox was secure and stable and firmly in place.  Then he carefully placed the numbered stickers on both sides of it.  Hurrah!  We had a mailbox. We could finally get our mail at our house instead of picking it up at the post office.

It was only a few months later that someone in the dark of night,  swerved or swung wide and knocked it down.  Excuse me, they not only knocked it down, they obliterated it.  There were pieces of mailbox strewn up and down the road, across the street and in our driveway.  The perp left behind their sideview mirror and some broken light bits as  souvenirs.   Best guess says that they were going too fast.  Although I cleaned it up immediately, I was still finding bits and pieces for weeks afterwards.  

Naturally Tim replaced the entire mailbox.  He moved it a little bit and we bought a bigger, stronger, sturdier mailbox.  It wasn't long after installation that I found a dent in the side of the box.  At least it wasn't knocked down that time, dented not destroyed. Okay. I can live with that.

Occasionally we see evidence of a near-miss (shouldn't that be near-hit?)  Tiretracks in the grassy area that comes close but doesn't quite connect.  Nice try there!  There have been other minor dings and scrapes but nothing worth making a big deal about. Until this past Tuesday.

This last hit was in full daylight.  The mailbox was perfectly fine when I went out to bring in the newspaper in the morning. But by the time the mail truck came by it was down.  I wouldn't have known except that the mail lady came to the door, our mail in her hands and said, "Hey did you know that your mailbox is broken?"  

I blinked stupidly at her while trying to process what she said. "What?"  I ran out to check and sure enough there it was.  On the ground.  Dang.

The mail lady handed me our small pile of mail and reminded me that they cannot deliver to the house until and unless the mailbox is repaired.  Double Dang.  

I tried.  I really really tried to fix it myself but I didn't have the smarts, the understanding, or, as it turns out, the correct tools to fix it myself.    To be fair all I saw was a large screw that required a Philips' Head Screwdriver which I had in my hot little hand.  It was tricky trying to balance the actual mailbox with one hand all the while lining it up and trying to put the screw back in place.  But since that wasn't how to properly fix it, (as I later learned) the piddly little bit that I was doing wasn't going to repair it anyway.

It turns out that most of the entire apparatus needed to be taken apart.  A new hole had to be drilled. Things had to be reconfigured and wow, there were a lot more pieces involved that I certainly realized.  Which is how I learned that I had zero idea what I was doing when I tried to repair it myself.

Needless to say, the box is back on the post now and looks pretty good.  It's not quite as sturdy as it once was and is, in fact, currently attached by  about half as many fasteners as usual (lord knows where the rest of the various bolts and screws and washers are).  But it's up.  The door doesn't completely close anymore either so on a rainy day we may have damp mail.  Still, as I said, the mailbox is back up.

At least it's up for the moment.  The next time it gets whacked, it'll be down again and I'm not sure it will be fixable one more time.  Which means we would have to buy a new one. Again.  This time Tim is thinking, concrete or steel.  Maybe armed guards, barbed wire and land mines.

Come to think of it, maybe this is why the previous owner had no mailbox.  It kept getting whacked and they got tired of replacing it!  Aha!  Well we are made of sterner stuff!   We don't give up!  (And I don't really want to have to go to the post office every day to get our mail)

New line item in the household budget:  New Mailbox once every 4 years.  Dang.