I've Got Mail (9-20-07)

You’re probably thinking this will be a column about America Online. I wish it was. No, this column is about me finally getting actual real mail, snail mail. Letters, bills, magazines, 19th century stuff.

A few months back, I was just minding my own business in peaceful, law-abiding Altadena, living life, watching Jeopardy, eating food with trans fat still in it, and then them bastards struck. I went out one morning to pick up the newspapers and the mailbox was all smashed in. It appeared that some low-life, snot-snorting, knuckle-dragging, joy-riding, mutant jerk-off had maybe gotten malt liquored up and had taken a baseball bat to my mailbox.

I thought it was probably a teen-age right of passage deal, and being the forgiving type of guy I am, or at least hope to be some day, I let it go. I repaired the mailbox and went back to my regular life of getting angry at things I have no control over. And then them bastards struck again. I go out another morning to pick up the papers and let my robe fall open to give the neighbors a thrill, and damned if the entire mailbox has been whacked off its post. It’s just lying there, whimpering to me, “Jim, my owner, help me. Help me hold your mail once again. Help me do my job. Help me be a mailbox.” It was very sad.

However, I got over the sadness pretty fast and got in the car and started driving around the neighborhood to see if I could spot a pattern of other whacked mailboxes. Well, I found a few other banged up boxes, but nothing quite as bad as mine. A couple of them looked like maybe, Juan Pierre hat hit them, but mine looked like it had been Barry Bondsed, baby. It was ugly. I think it even had growth hormones on it. I bet AOL has never had that problem.

So this time I go over to Osh Hardware and I buy this industrial strength heavy titanium metal mailbox Superman would get a hernia hitting. I mean this mailbox was tough. You could make airline black boxes out of it.

And I go back to my house in the hills of life, and I attach this new iron box to the post, after many pathetic handy-man attempts, and I’m very pleased with my new indestructible creation. I’m thinking to myself, “Smash that you smash-ass bastards!” And I smiled and I kicked a few loose stones in my driveway really hard and I yelled, “Yeah! Me, the Man!”

And then, maybe a month later, I hear Hadley, my dog, barking his watchdog, psychotic bark, about midnight, and, well, like I handle most problems, I just ignored it. He was going nuts, barking and jumping at the front door, his canineacal head was whip lashing around spewing irate dog drool all over the hallway, and me, smart human-face, was yelling at him, “Quiet! I’m watching Letterman.” And I go to bed.

I get up the next morning, brush my teeth and my tongue, and go out in the kitchen and give Hadley his water and I take my 27 pills to keep me a movin and a groovin, and I start the coffee pot and I wander out to get the papers. Well, Virginia, I could not believe what I was seeing. (Hadley, however, could believe it. He was giving me the finger with his paw.) Them bastards had not hit my mailbox at all. But they had whacked out the wooden post on which the indestructible mailbox had been expertly installed by yours truly, Mr. Handyman Face.

It was quite a scene. The entire post was in splinters. I was devastated. Really. It was just a pitiful mess out there. And I felt hopeless. Just splintered wood everywhere and the jagged edge of the post sticking up from the ground and the mailbox was crying. I was almost defeated. But I wasn’t defeated. Just almost. No, nothing defeats me. Nothing. Except, chocolate.

So I called the Altadena Sheriff’s Station and a squad car comes out and I tell him my sad story and I show him the splintered mess and he takes my name for the report and then he says, “Aren’t you the guy who writes that smoke column?’ And I say, “Well, yeah. That’s me. Do you think it’s one of my critics who did this?” And the sheriff guy says, “I don’t know, but I can’t arrest 5,000 people, sir.” Those cops are kidders.

So now I have to figure out to stop them bastards for good this time. I go to Crown City Hardware down on Allen and I buy, I’m not kidding, I buy a $375 iron post, iron mailbox combo sumbitch that I can barely lift to get in the car. I spend $375 on a mailbox! 375 dollars. It did have an Eagle on the front of it.

Then I go to the Altadena Hardware Store on that little street off Lake that I don’t know the name of, and I go in there and I ask the guy for a post hole digger. And he says, “ We don’t employ any illegal aliens in here.” (I think he was the cops’ brother.) I didn’t laugh. Eventually I bought this big five-foot iron rod thing with a sharp pointed end and a 50-pound bag of cement.

I go home and I dig a post hole two feet deep and eight inches square and I fill that sucker with instant drying cement and I put in the iron post and iron mailbox all meshed together into one anti-bat-bashing-bastards unit. And that damn instant cement lives up to its name and now that mailbox is in, baby. I mean it is in. It is strong. It is iron in cement. It is solid.

If Them Bastards get this one, I guess I’ll have to open an AOL account. Or buy a shotgun. I’m going with B.