You heard right: The great State of Ohio ate my mailbox. OK, so it wasn’t a dingo and a baby, but road work and a mailbox seem to have about the same end result.
We all know Ohio’s state flower is a construction barrel and that those begin “sprouting” as soon as the worst of the snow clears. Actually, I think some of them are permanent fixtures that remain year-round, but the ones that grew on our street popped up a couple of days ago.
We have a rural mailbox that sits on a very busy road. It’s a mile from the house and requires a “bye-bye” with the dogs and the car to gather mail. (The dogs don’t have to go, but it’s a thing now, and if they see me with mail and they didn’t go bye-bye, they pout.) When I’m home, I check the mail obsessively, because I’m one of the only three people on earth who still gets my paycheck in the mail, and when there’s a potential for money in the mailbox, I’m on it like white on rice.
I went to check the mail before we left for Louisville and found this:
Our mailbox had been removed from the post and wired to the beautiful white-and-orange state flower. The post, which George dug the hole for and risked his life in traffic to set in concrete eight years ago, had vanished. The entire strip of road had been dug out, and our poor, pitiful, post-less mailbox was sitting in traffic, just waiting to be bashed by a horrible, uncaring trucker. (Haha, just kidding! I’m actually more concerned with the 400-year-old lady in our tiny town who drives a Hummer and terrorizes anything that is stationary and unable to run from her.)
Needless to say, I was upset about the state of the mailbox. Mostly because the postman refuses to deliver mail to an orange construction barrel, and I don’t blame him. My first call was to the post office.
“Hi, yeah, my mailbox has been disassembled and wired to an orange construction barrel. Anyone have any idea who gave the OK for my private property to be destroyed?”
I was told the post office had not been notified of the mailbox moving. I was directed to Ohio Department of Transportation.
“Hi, yeah, my mailbox has been disassembled and wired to an orange construction barrel. Anyone have any idea who gave the OK for my private property to be destroyed?”
I was told they contract all the work out and have no idea who the brilliant individual was that wired my mailbox to a barrel.
Once again, the feds and the state have decided they won’t confer on a project, and this time, our mailbox has become the victim. I am not a happy camper. When I was a kid, I bashed a mailbox with a softball bat out of pure stupidity and meanness, and I almost went to kid jail for it. I got the fifth degree from my daddy about how mailboxes are federal property and I could be charged with a federal crime for tampering with them. I will never forget the terror of knowing I had committed a federal crime — it was almost as scary as the whipping I got for being a destructive jerk.
Apparently, the State of Ohio needs a minute with my dad and his whipping belt, because they really don’t seem to care that someone committed a federal offense by wiring my poor, unassuming mailbox to an orange barrel.
This isn’t over. I will avenge our mailbox. Stay tuned.
