Sigh.
When I pulled out yesterday morning for the first of the day’s errands I saw that our roadside mailbox was gone. Well, the post, about 3′ of it, was still there but the crossbeam and box were g. o. n. e. Was there day before yesterday when I went to check mail on returning home from work in the evening.
Well, later in the day I went shopping for a replacement. Figured to get one of those plastic ones that just fit over a post embedded in the ground (since I happened to have one in place). Local big box hardware store didn’t have one. Walmart next to it didn’t carry mailboxes. I check Walmarts web site and, oh, they had them down at a place not too far from where I live. Just to make sure, I put in an order with “pick up in the store” as the delivery method. I figured I’d just be able to go over that night or the next day and…”we estimate your order will be ready Tuesday, November 26th.”
Double sigh.
I tried to cancel the order (thinking I’ll just go in person and try my luck). No confirmation of the cancellation and I didn’t want to buy two (checked the card provider online and, yep, the card had been billed so I’d paid for the ordered mailbox). So now I have to wait until either the one I’ve ordered is ready for pickup or until I get a confirmation that the order has been cancelled and the money refunded.
On the plus side, such as it is, I found the old mailbox itself on my porch later that evening. At least the person who broke it (or perhaps some kindly passerby later) put it up there out of the way for all the good that did.
This was annoying.
For comparison, there was a time when I knocked over somebody’s mailbox. (Then wife and daughter had just left on an extended overseas trip so I was more than a little stressed. I never handled separation well until…well, that’s a story for another time and probably not for a public forum.) I went and talked to the owner (who was home), I was heading out for a trip and couldn’t fully make it right at the time but MadMike and I propped the post and box up on a temporary basis so the person could still get mail and when we returned from the trip I bought a new post and we installed it in place of the one I’d broken by backing into it with my Explorer.
The Writer in Black 