Monday, April 05, 2010

Blog? What blog?

I know. I know.

I have been away from this blog for quite a while.

Oh where has the time gone?

Life has been quite different as of late. There have been changes that have made things exciting, scary, confusing, and down right exhausting.

One consistent, though, has been the destruction of yet another brick mailbox. This is the third mailbox, y'all.

Mailbox #1:

The first mailbox saw the end of its life when my Father-in-Law backed my MIL's minivan into it. That was our first Xmas in the house.

I looked into contractors and finally went with the guy who originally built our house in our 1987. My MIL's insurance covered the 1500 bones it took to rebuild that mailbox.

Mailbox #2:

The second mailbox was hit by an unknown dishonest coward of a person. We noticed the mailbox was cracked in the middle and slightly pushed askew away from the road and towards our house. It looked like a car's bumper slowly backed into our mailbox. The mailbox was still standing and pretty much a solid structure to where K and I said, "Eff it. As long as it's not a danger we're just going to ignore this like it never happened."

Well, we could ignore it no longer when our neighbor from across the street had a plumber over one day. That plumber totally backed into the mailbox and creamed it to where it could no longer be ignored. Luckily, K was home that day when the plumber rang the doorbell to tell him of what just happened.

I admit I procrastinated in making any calls about the mailbox. I was so down and frustrated about having to deal with contractors and insurance companies again. I mean granted it wasn't money we had to shovel out but still just the headache from it all was driving me to drink and I'm definitely not a drinker.

I procrastinated long enough to where a crew of hispanic workers drove up to the house and explained to K that they could fix our mailbox for around $280. Their supervisor for another job was working on our street and that's why this crew of guys noticed our mailbox. After talking over the details and what not and shaking hands on it K agreed to let them make a go of it.

We told the plumber that if he'd prefer to pay us in cash what all of this would cost instead of going through his insurance then we were game to that. He was in full agreement too.

That crew of men were at the house the next day, a Saturday, a week or two before Xmas. December was an unlucky month for mailbox #1 and #2. The crew had it rebuilt in a day and the total coming to around $330. It was super cheap because we already had all the bricks we needed to rebuilt #2 from having left over bricks from the reconstruction of #1.

Mailbox #3:

The second mailbox only lived for about 2 to 3 months. My boss and his wife came over to the house to visit. As they were leaving my boss backed his truck into mailbox #2. It was totally demolished and there was basically no damage done to my boss's truck. :/

By that evening I texted my boss and told him that it cost us $330 to rebuild it and it cost $35 for K to pick up a regular ole' plain mailbox from Lowe's. If he gave us $336 in cash or check then we'd call it a done deal. My boss came the next day to clean up all the rubble and gave me a wad of cash.

I'm sure many people would say just let insurance take care of it and have it rebuilt again. Seriously, though, I think K and I are really relieved to have just a plain ole mailbox standing upright now. To never have to worry about a demolished brick mailbox ever again is pure joy to me right now.

I do miss having a brick mailbox. It was one of the things that made me smile as a home owner. I didn't realize I'd have so much pride in owning a brick mailbox. It made me feel like somebody. Like...look at my fancy mailbox, y'all! It's like I'm rich! Ha!

I guess I wasn't meant to have a brick mailbox. :(

Oh, and the neighbor across the street tried to make us feel better by telling us that the couple who used to live in our home had to have the mailbox replaced twice themselves. *sigh* That little corner has some major bad ju ju.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

This is a great story. :-D I'd have given up long ago. Shoot, I've already given up, as our mailbox is slowly slithering down its pole and I am just letting it. Good to see you're back. I'm loving your pics.

Zay said...

Why thank you, Michelle! :)

Mary T-Allen said...

Good Lord! Another one bites the dust? I don't know how everyone keeps hitting your mailbox; it doesn't seem easy to miss that thing. I hope someday you'll replace it. I wonder if it could just be moved over a fraction? That is craziness! Even though it was 3 mailboxes, it was at least 4 incidents in less than 3 years. Crazy!

KB said...

I was thinking the same thing. It should probably be moved. 1500?! Yikes.

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