I double dog dare you
By TheRealDawn
@dawnald (85146)
Shingle Springs, California
August 18, 2010 1:24pm CST
I thought I had posted about this a while back, but I can't find the discussion. I probably used a weird title. I like using weird titles, but it's probably not real efficient for searching.
Anyway, growing up we lived on a cul de sac. We were right at the spot where the straight part ran into the circle. And we had these neighbors who lived in one of the two houses at the end of the circle, sort of diagonally from us. The mom liked to back out of her driveway in a long arc in the direction of our driveway.
One day we went out and saw that our mailbox had been knocked over. No big deal, my dad was pretty handy, so he went and bought a new pole (or straightened the old one, I forget), put the mailbox on it, and cemented it into the ground.
All was well until one day we went out, and the mailbox had been creamed again. Well this time dad got smart and cemented a hollow pipe into the ground, and inserted the mailbox pole into the pipe. That way, if the mailbox got clobbered again, he could just pull the pole out and either replace it or fix it without having to redo the cement.
We were suspecting this particular neighbor, because we knew how she backed out of her driveway. And then one morning I was up in my bedroom, which faced the street, and BOOM. I looked out the window, and there she was, her car pretty much on top of what was left of the mailbox. Caught!
I told my parents what I had seen, and dad went over there and asked her about it. She denied having anything to do with it. Next time dad put the mailbox up, he put a large target on the front of it. She must have gotten the point, as the mailbox was never clobbered again, at least not by her. Some years later, one of our next door neighbors had her accelerator stick, her car got out of control, and she banded into a lot of things, including our mailbox.
It wasn't a good spot for a mailbox, I guess.
Anyway, I bring this up because my sister just recently joined Facebook, and she e-mailed me that she had located the two sons of the mailbox lady. So I evilly suggested that I might send them a friend request, and mention that we all forgave their mother for the mailbox.
She double dog dared me.
I sent the older son, the one I remember, a friend request. Seem to have forgotten to mention the mailbox. (insert chicken noises here)
PS Some years later, we bought this fancy shmanzy looking mailbox for our house in West Hills. My father-in-law creamed it...
5 people like this
15 responses
@GardenGerty (160952)
• United States
18 Aug 10
I have not seen this topic from you before, so either I missed it, or you only thought you posted it. Glad it was the mailbox and not the postal person that kept getting hit. Wasn't that kind of hard on her car? I do not think I would bring up the mailbox. He might not have a sense of humor.
2 people like this
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
19 Aug 10
We have a problem with kids taking baseball bats to ours since we live in a holler and the mailboxes are at the end of the holler across the street. So we need a new one but why waste money they would soon target it again. I have been double dogged dare before..but sometimes times like that doesn't come out so well.
1 person likes this
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
19 Aug 10
Yeah that would be a cool ideal to put one on each side with cement in them and mine in the middle and have it boxed in somehow..I am tired of getting wet mail..sometimes when it is raining out the mail man will put our mail in our neighbors box instead(our neighbor is my husbands sister so she gives it to us, unless it is magazines or somehting she wants to look at then it is a fe days before we get it..). lol
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
Maybe you need to fill the mailbox with cement?
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
Now if that was my figure skating magazine and somebody latched onto it and read it first, I'd be grrrrddd....
@BarBaraPrz (47667)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
18 Aug 10
And ya wonder why ya never get any mail anymore...
1 person likes this
@minx267 (15527)
• Hartford, Connecticut
19 Aug 10
LOL. I don't care what MYKL says -that was funny..
I can't believe she still denied even after she was caught.
I would have rigged it so the next person that hit it either got some could damage to their car or It left a colorful mark when they backed into it..
Then she couldn't deny it if her car was wearing the mark/scar from backing over it!
Thank god my mailbox is ON MY HOUSE..
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
I like what Holly said about putting the concrete above ground. :D
The mailbox was on my house at my first house too. Some neighborhoods were designed for the mailman to walk, others for him to drive. All within the same city...
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
More like some parts are older than others...
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
Don't know, but I don't live there any more anyway. Where I live, we have a rural box, everybody's box all in the same place, and if mine gets creamed, everybody's get creamed. But it's a pretty solid thing, and if it did get hit, it would probably cause more damage to the car than to the mailbox.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
I like what Holly said about putting the cement above ground!
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
If he accepts the friend request, and if he seems to have a sense of humor, I will consider it...
@savypat (20216)
• United States
18 Aug 10
Mail boxes in the country do not live long. In fact quite a bit of money has been made by inventing a longer lived mail box. Out here a favoritte game is done with a moving car and baseball bat, one kid hangs out the window with the intention of removing the box with the bat. What we have doen to survive this is put a sturdy
box on the pole with an easy release. Thus the bat hits the box and sends it sailing we come by and pick up the box and slide it back on the post. It's worked for the last several years.
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
I remember seeing some kind of a funny video with some guy out in the country's solution to the mailbox problem. Wish I could remember what it was....
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
I wish the durn thing HAD been housed in brick
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
Back then, the tree wasn't big enough. Plus it had to be at a certain height and distance from the curb so that the mailman could just drive up to it.
@Orea15 (281)
• United States
19 Aug 10
Honestly, don't you think NL (Neighbor Lady) would have learned to be careful after the FIRST time she creamed your mailbox? And to wait until confronted, and lie about it, instead of "manning up" and going to confess to your folks and pay for the damage -- well that is pretty shameful.
1 person likes this
@bounce58 (17385)
• Canada
21 Aug 10
While reading your story, I half expected your dad to make the mailbox a lot sturdier so that if ever that lady backed up on the mailbox, it would damage her car pretty bad that she won't be able to deny it.
I guess mailboxes are a good target for wayward cars! Even those ones that are just backing up.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
21 Aug 10
he should have put the concrete above ground!
@2004cqui (2812)
• United States
18 Aug 10
Same thing happened to a tree of ours when I was growing up. We knew it was the neighbors kid. Don't accuse him! Parents defended him all the time. Bailed him out too many times. So dad took a heavy gauge, solid steel pipe he had laying around and sunk it into the ground really deep! You can imagine the damage to that kids car one dark night, just because he was backing up too far, on purpose. I almost forgot about that. That was funny!
1 person likes this
@mithun0836 (15)
• India
19 Aug 10
i really pity your mailbox. yah i too think you should change the place for your mailbox.
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Aug 10
I think we had to put the mailbox in that location. It had to be where the mailman could reach it from his truck.
@much2say (56057)
• Los Angeles, California
18 Aug 10
I know saphrina already did this, but I triple dog dare you too! Hee hee. Poor mailbox! Well, if it's worth anything, I hope the mailbox made some nice dents in her car! Did anyone ever check her car for them - since she denied doing it?
I'm used to mail boxes that are put on some wall near the front door area - it was that way in our neighborhood and still is. I've always wanted one of those mailboxes on a pole!
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
18 Aug 10
Oh noooo. Not saying a word to him. Well maybe I'll just remind him of some shenanigans from back then, including the mailbox, without pointing the fingers in any specific direction...