Mailbox Wars

It was a beauty; larger and shinier than our old one.  My husband Ed stuck  big, gold numbers on the side and walked up the driveway to screw it into its post.  He was excited- our old box had been the target of vandalism many times and hadn’t worked properly in months.  We knew it would be hit again, but we were hoping to enjoy a brief period of time where our mailbox looked as nice as our house did.

It lasted exactly fourteen hours.

At 5:40am the following day, it became just like the mailbox it replaced- junk.

It wasn’t the only mailbox hit that morning.  Our next door neighbor’s box was hit so hard that he found it in the wood behind its post.  Other mailboxes looked to have been hit too, but on a country road like ours it’s hard to tell  new mailbox damage from old.  We were sure ours had been the main target; as our neigbor put it, “You can’t put fresh bait out and expect them not to take it.”

Ed was furious.  He banged the dents out as best he could.   After watching our mailman struggle to shut it, Ed began making plans with the neigbor to catch the vagrants responsible.  After all, when they realize the box is still functional they will be back for another round of  Mailbox Wars.

As a manager and mother of three, my solution is to remove the source of the conflict by switching to a post office box.  Ed flatly refused.  He said that was the same as admitting defeat.  We discussed the various tamper-resistant mailboxes on the market, but we made no plans to purchase any of them.  They are expensive and they don’t stop crafty teenagers.  One of our neigbors has a tamper-resistant box, and when the vandals want to damage it they just run over it with their cars.

The event bothered me all day.  It wasn’t that the box was damaged- I don’t take that personally.  What bothered me was that Ed was choosing to fight a battle for which there is no end and no chance of victory.  But I think now I understand.

Mailbox Wars are a miniature version of life’s struggles.  We can’t control what happens to us, only how we respond.  My husband has chosen to never, ever give up.  That attitude is worth any price- and certainly worth the price of a few black metal boxes with flags on them.