Geri Sullivan, Girl Homeowner: Wales, I have a mailbox!

[gerisullivan]

New Mailbox: Installed!

Here's the new mailbox, and the view looking west along Monson Road. Four more new pictures are yours for the viewing if you click on the image above.

I believe this will be the final report, much as I ought to end with a picture that shows mail delivered to the box.

Today's installment is a tad too predictable, so I'll start with it and then go back to the mailbox-related surprise from Friday night.

It stopped raining, but there was a bitter wind blowing today. That made installing the final seven screws rather brutal on the hands. I should have walked back down the drive for a more flexible pair of work gloves, but I cursed the cold and lived with sticking my hands in my pockets to warm them whenever possible.

The job was soon done, with a slight mishap. No home improvement project is complete with at least one, right?

Yesterday, I carefully closed the plastic box of assorted screws after every screw I removed. You can see what's coming, right? I closed the box again today after removing the screws needed for the interior, but then carelessly left it open after grabbing the very last screw I needed for the far side of the box. I was standing a good two feet away from the rock where the canvas bag with the tools and open box of screws rested. Maybe even three feet.

As I struggled with the last screw -- the only one that insisted on going in sideways and sticking out of the bottom of the board -- a big gust of wind came along and blew the bag to the ground. The bag and the open box of screws.

Too impatient and cold to pick up every screw one by one, and too meticulous to simply leave them littering the ground, I scooped up several handfuls of screws mixed in with the fallen leaves and dumped those into the bottom of the canvas work bag.

I sure hope I get around to cleaning it out and returning the screws to the now-closed, thoroughly-jumbled assortment box before I forget about that particular mess awaiting my attention.

Further realities of small town life

Friday evening, I returned home from buying the mailbox, reflective numbers, groceries, and running other errands. A phone message awaited: Officer Collins from the Wales Police Department had returned my call from Wednesday. He hoped I could stop by and see him at the police office that night, or perhaps he'd swing by here.

I returned the call, got the answering machine again, left a message of my own, and waited about a half-hour. Then I drove over to the town offices, where I thought (but was not certain) the police department is.

The building was dark, so I headed over to the fire station, thinking perhaps the police were there instead.

There was a car blocking the driveway to the fire station. I waited until it moved enough so I could pull in, noticing that it was a police car in the process. (It was really dark out.) I parked my car and walked over to the passenger side of the police car to minimize any appearance of threat.

"Officer Collins?" I asked.

Sure enough. I introduced myself and he recorded the pertinent details of the mailbox theft to add to the list he's compiling for a report. We chatted amiably, veering off to other topics as he raised the radar gun to check the speed of the one or two cars heading out of town that passed us by in the time I was there. There's not much traffic in Wales. Not much of anything else, either, aside from the trees and rocks that make up the woods I moved here for.

Near the end of our conversation, Officer Collins got to asking exactly how far along Monson Road my house is. I described the location and quickly learned that Officer Collins is also Plow Guy! He works for Terry O'Keefe, and also helped install the risers to give surface access to my septic tank this summer. We hadn't recognized each other in the different context. I focused on the visual signals that told me I was talking to a police officer and gave no thought to the fact that the six hours or so a week that Wales has a police officer on duty almost certainly meant the person I was talking to held another job or that he might have ever been to my house. Duh.

I'm amused. There's the added comfort of knowing that if I need the police to get down to my house in the middle of a snowstorm, I've got just the guy already on the job!

Comments

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Ouch, sounds like a tough day to do that installation, but good that you got it done!

[jane-dennis.livejournal.com]

Nice job. Looks spiffy.

I find myself wishing someone would steal our mailbox... see, a few years ago when the Ugliest.Mailbox.Ever bit the dust, we built our own. Yes it was. When we gave people directions to our house, we'd tell them to go down our street until they came to the UME. No one ever missed us. Let's just say that as a mailbox design, Chuck Wagons are to be avoided. And yes of course it was from the previous owners.

So we did our own mailbox, all wood in mid-century modern style, redwood with black accents to match the house. The design is great. The execution was So lacking - mostly I used too much scrap wood and even painted, it's not taking the weather well... Now I'm just happy if the mail doesn't get too drenched, or the door will open/close ok, or bits haven't fallen off lately. I think I'd settle for a pole and box from hardward store, but Scott wants to recreate the cool design. SIgh. I think we can at least still use the uprights.

I definitely feel your pain on the knocking over the screws into the leaves. No matter what household project I tackle, there's always the Oh Fuck moment when I know the Auditors are around. If I'm lucky, it doesn't involve a computer.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

A chuckwagon, eh? It sounds both ugly and twee. I'm glad its wheels fell off and you had to replace it.

I'm sorry your custom model is not quite ready for prime time. Good luck improving the design on its predecessor!

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Magnets are your friend.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Good point!

Hmmm....thinking through what I have around here in the way of magnets to ease the whole "clean out the canvas work bag" part of the equation....

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That is a nice mailbox. And to think you have a Langford and a Bacon living (virtually) in it.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Very nice mailbox! And how funny that Officer Collins is Plow Guy!

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

That is a very handsome mailbox, and it looks to be securely attached. But are the numbers in the right order?

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

GRIN.

It's like a reversed tarot card, only different....

(The house did come with a brass "1973" affixed to the garage. It's still there. And, yes, that's the year the house was built. I didn't know that when I first looked at the listing, for it said 1974. Most likely the occupancy permit date, or something like that.)

[jamesb.livejournal.com]

I must say that your mailbox looks awesome. I supposse understanding what american mailboxes are became apparent from Cartoons on TV, somehow either bugs bunny or Tom and Jerry spring to mind. THe idea of a box for post, as oppossed to a 'letter box' mail slot, which is a hole in the door, was odd, but that was America. Of course from pavement to door front is about thirty feet, and even in expensive houses in dublin, long drives are just rare.

My aunts were big snoopy fans, as teenagers, and there for, as young ladies and in their company as a child, I somehow read and watched Good Ol Chakrie Brown, and the mail box was always another source of dissapointment for a character always hoped would get mail.

At some stage I rmember a movie or TV programme, where letter boxes were the target of teens in big cars, with baseball bats.

I got the idea generally, and of course, it is an iconic piece of american culture, whether it be Hobbes picking up Calvin to reach the mailbox, or an image of Road Runner standing on a mailbox on 33 cent stamp, it is american.

so its quite a noce thing to see yours.

james

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

There's a rule in the US that all new mailbox settings have to be accessible by the right-hand drive mailtrucks. We have clusterboxes in four places in our condo development, because there's no way to put individual mailboxes up. And if your car or boat or something blocks your mailbox, the carriers don't have to deliver. I went to high school with the girl whose father developed those rules and it was what she hauled out whenever she wanted to feel superior.