- April 18, 2024
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It was getting to the point that my wife, Hailey, was threatening to buy a new mailbox. One of the rivets had totally rusted through, and the door was hanging crooked, on one hinge. But buy a new one? With actual money?
“I can fix it,” I said.
“To my standards?” Hailey said, with an eyebrow raised.
It’s against family principles to spend money on mailboxes. My father didn’t buy a new mailbox even though it was knocked over a half dozen times by snowplows in Connecticut. By the time I graduated high school, the mailbox was affixed to the post with rope. It was a symbol of McMillan resourcefulness, ingenuity. The American spirit. Make do with what you have! Waste not, want —
“Dad,” my 11-year-old reality check, Jackson, said. His eyes narrowed. “You have to let go of your precious mailbox.”
“Dad,” my 11-year-old reality check, Jackson, said. His eyes narrowed. “You have to let go of your precious mailbox.”
“If we throw away a perfectly good mailbox,” I ventured, “we are contributing to global warming, recklessly increasing the demand for natural resources.”
“It’s not a perfectly good mailbox,” Hailey responded. “And they only cost 10 bucks.”
But by my standards, it’s well within its life expectancy. It has a simple function: Keep the mail from getting wet. It has been reliable for years, and who am I to give up on it now, to put it down before its time? It would be immoral!
We have a lot of memories, that mailbox and me. On a golden summer day, I dug a hole and poured cement for its post. I reattached it after an unfortunate Halloween vandalism episode. A year or so ago on a rainy afternoon, a man knocked on my door to apologize on behalf of his teenage daughter, who was parked in my swale, crying in the driver’s seat of a minivan, the mailbox lying in the grass. Did I give up on it? No, I drilled new holes in the post. I bent the door with pliers so that it could almost close normally. I patted its dome and gave it a warm smile and whistled a happy tune as I walked away. Anything for you, pal!
For me, getting rid of the mailbox now would be a betrayal. All Hailey could think about was the embarrassment of being the people on the street with the mailbox that’s tied up with rope.
So I did what any desperate know-nothing handyman would do: I rummaged through the junk drawer.
“Zip ties,” I said, holding up a baggie. “Should be no problem.”
Hailey rolled her eyes. Jackson said, “Yeah, right, Dad.”
I marched out to prove everyone wrong. I threaded it through the holes to attach the door, zipped it up, snipped off the excess, and folded my arms to let my 9-year-old son, Grant, give it a try.
He opened the door, and the zip tie sliced through like a wet noodle. Needless to say, Grant was grounded for a week.
Back to the junk drawer. There must be a nut and a bolt in here that match somewhere. Finally, in another drawer in the garage, under assorted bags of discarded hardware from other projects, I found a bolt and nut that would fit.
And it worked! The bolt is a few inches too long, but, hey, it’s better than rope, right?
Hailey sighed.
But I felt I had rescued a brave family member. I had staved off the devastating effects of global warming — and I was 10 bucks richer. But, I ask you, Dear Reader, to please be careful as you’re driving down my street; my mailbox can’t withstand much more than 25 mph wind gusts.
