Someone whacked our mailbox last night.
My college roommate Lisa grew up in the city of Chicago and she firmly believes that anyone whose mailbox sits on its own post is a hick.
She believes that to qualify as "urban" your mailbox has to be housed with a collection of other mailboxes (like in the foyer of your building) or mounted to your actual house (near the front door.)
A brief recap of THE HICK MAILBOX THEORY...
If your mailbox looks like this:
or this:
Then, in The Worldview of Lisa, you are
NOT A HICK.
However, if your mailbox looks anything like this:
(Which mine TOTALLY does!)
NOT A HICK.
However, if your mailbox looks anything like this:
(Which mine TOTALLY does!)
Then Lisa says,
"YOU ARE A HICK!"
"YOU ARE A HICK!"
The following photo series,
taken at 3:00 a.m. in 1987,
chronicles the endeavors taken by my
(extraordinarily drunken) roommate Liz
(from Tennessee)
in an attempt to persuade (the equally drunk) Lisa
to amend The Hick Mailbox Theory
through sheer physical force.
Throughout the tussle, Liz shouted,
"SAY I'M NOT A HICK JUST BECAUSE I HAVE A MAILBOX!!!
A SIMPLE YES IS ALL IT TAKES."
Sadly, as the final photo in the series illustrates,
(on the bottom left)
Liz lost that fight
and The Hick Mailbox Theory
got up and put her drunk self to bed
remained standing.
(on the bottom left)
Liz lost that fight
and The Hick Mailbox Theory
got up and put her drunk self to bed
remained standing.
With The Hick Mailbox Theory recapped, I begin my report again...
My damned hick mailbox done got knocked down last night along with all the hick mailboxes on my hick street.
There was a knock on our door at 10:30 p.m.
Normally we would have been long since sound asleep at that late hour because our toddlers routinely wake us at The Time That Is MANY Hours Before Reasonable People Arise.
But last night...
Well..
Bow, Chicka, Bow, Wow was...um... in progress.
K and I
My first thought was, "Those crazy kids!"
(Followed by, "I have watched way too much Nick At Night.")
Rusty told us that the police caught the "perps" and K wondered if we should pursue reimbursement for costs related to fixing our hick mailbox.
I am against taking punitive action.
First of all, our hick mailbox is the cheapest, most poorly made postal receptacle in the history of the universe AND it is infested with ants.
Everyday I get a bundle of mail and 10,000 ants. (The joys)
Beyond the very low quality of our hick mailbox, there is the karma.
We need to let those crazy kids go!
Looking back, my friends Cindy, Colleen and I did not have to pay damages for trying to steal the high school drama department girls' bathroom tampon machine by using a crowbar to pry it off of the wall.
Nor did we get into too much trouble for toilet papering the yards of the members of the senior boys swim team.
(Though I did have to go to detention for stealing all the toilet paper out of every bathroom in the entire high school and trying to hide it in my stadium jacket --- I was busted looking like a female, teen version of the Michelin Man waddling past the custodian.)
Oh, the vandalism of my youth.
What random acts of teen stupidity will The Mayor and Rooster attempt?
I say we just get a new mailbox.
[K mutters something about me not being the one to have to install it...]
VIVA LOS NINOS LOCOS!!
DOWN WITH THE MAILBOX!!
DOWN WITH THE MAILBOX!!
82 comments:
I love it when, driving around the more rural parts of my state, I see mailboxes with all of these crazy contraptions that the owner has made trying to thwart the mailbox bash.....like bricks built up around the mailbox, tires....yes, tires surrounding the post & the mailbox. Among others. I think those people must chronically have their mailbox smashed.
I'm sure you can think of a way to barter with K on this.....I know you got it in you to get crafty ;)
I would be more bent about having the bow chick bow wow interuppted and I would make sure those kids knew the extent of the damage they may have caused you and hubs as far as the mental pain and suffereing that may be caused the next time you attempt bow chick bow wow.
I'm jealous. You have a mailbox to get knocked down. I don't own a mailbox yet. Yup, 11 months into the 'new' home and I am mailboxless..
And you were having the sexy time...High five.
Well, um, I grew up in the country and we had one of those hick boxes...
I didn't know you COULD catch a mailbox baseball player. I think my parents just took it as one of the costs of living in the country (aka being a hick), having to replace the mailbox every year or so. Some of my high schools friends' boyfriends regularly played mailbox baseball.
Sorry to hear you were interrupted while having the sex. But it is funny to think about kids running and screaming b/c they've been attacked by killer ants. The ants will have their revenge.
When we moved into our first home -ok ok it was a trailer - we had this gigantor steel mailbox. I'm talkin' this mofo was HUGE. And it was in the shape of a little house. Of course I painted it a nice ivory with red shingles.
Someone tried to vandalize our mailbox once. I bet it either busted the bat or knocked a few teeth loose. SWEET.
And yes, I often think about what Super B will get into when he gets older. Perhaps he will succumb to peer pressure like his mother and rearrange the letters on the gas station sign to read "Gee Faye Fry An Egg." We worked on the combinations for 30 mins and that's all we could come up with.
I must live in "Hicktown" because almost every mailbox here is a hick mailbox!
Installing a new one's not hard though if the post is still okay. I did it myself a couple of months ago.
I feel so elevated... me and my wall mounted mailbox...
Which we didn't have for over 6 months and instead went for a USPS plastic bin at the front gate for the postman to deliver the goods... talk about tacky!
You raise a good point... Hugh and I were outside one night shaking fists at a bunch of kids who had parked their cars on our street for some party...
And it did make me wonder when we had suddenly turned 100?
Here's your opportunity to get a way cool hick mailbox!! One shaped like a house, or a boot, or any number of non-mailbox shapes! (My neighbor has a train!) Just don't get one of those shaped like someone bending over and mooning the mailman! Really classy!
Because of previous incidents of theft, ours if a big bulky thing on a post that has a lock. Hit it with a bat and you're gonna feel it!!
My one and only act of vandalism was as a four-year-old. It also involved mailboxes. Except I was only stealing the out-going mail and stashing all those checks to the power company. I was TOTALLY rich.
No one sued me, but I did have to cry my way through many apologies to our furious neighbors.
Very funny post. My fave was the series of photos.
I have that same hick mailbox above. On a busy street, I'm a prime target for a drive by bashing. But I have to admit that I have played mailbox baseball in the past (or at least been present when it was played). So if my box gets smashed, it's only karma coming back to bite me in the ass!
I'd be more annoyed about the coitus interruptus!
Well I rolled my cheer coaches yard. Way too easy since she lived in the woods. She also never found out it was me thank goodness. did i mention that my cousin who is a cop went with me? yeaaaaaaaaa.....
i also stole all of the trolley signs from my campus. I even sold a few. HA! Oh, and campus police cones. I stole tons of those and i gave them to my brother to make an obstacle course on the driveway for his bike (he's 13 years younger). im such a cool big sis.
Umm... Several years ago, I could have gone to jail for the amount of vandalism created by some friends who shall not be named and myself. Good Times
I didn't know mailboxes were such status symbols. Lucky for me I have "fancy" mounted kind on my front door. :)
Our hick mailbox has never been bashed by los ninos locos. However, said ninos do, on occasion, DUCT TAPE our mailbox shut. Which, really is pretty funny. Also, the city snow plow has been known to "accidentally" knock down our mailbox, post and all, when plowing our streets. Ninos locos grown up. And driving snow plows.
Our neighborhood recently made everybody replace their perfectly good mailboxes with the same style of black cast iron mailbox, to match the new street signs, which, were also perfectly good. The price tag? $230. Nobody. I mean, nobody, better be playing mailbox baseball in my neighborhood or there will be hell to pay!! The residents are already pissed off about having to shell out $230 to replace mailboxes that didn't need replacing...they're just looking for an excuse to form a mob and declare mailbox anarchy.
So stupid.
We "moved on up" to an area with hick mailboxes. Go figure.
Good for you. I'm with you...let those kids go. If I had to pay restitution for all those cars I marshmallowed in my youth, or the time I put Mr. Bubble in the park fountain...
Oh, wait (looks at the chaos around her) -- maybe I AM paying for all that. Karma is a bitch.
I grew up with a hick mailbox. I always kind of liked walking out to get the mail.
Oh, and one last thing. Here's something your yanker from yesterday needs to see:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268161,00.html
Goodness, I'm just shocked that Blog Antagonist's neighbours could organise and create mailbox synchrony. You should see my neighbourhood. I was trying to tell Mme L the other day that it's not silly that our neighbours have a clawfoot tub in their front yard for washing grapes and then thought, "Oh, how far I have come."
And yeah, let those kids go. Charging them is one sure way of ensuring that it (or worse) will happen again.
Why don't you get one of those plastic rubbermaid ones? Then, when they knock it down, you can just put it back up.
And they are SO pretty. Not.
Too funny! Tabba, they do that here too! One neighbor who got his smashed installed metal poles on either side of the mailbox. I don't think he realizes one hit from the front and that things going down.
You are such a forgiving soul!
I remember as a kid when our hick mailbox got batted down (it was wooden, and looked like a little house) my dad, a welder, forged his own, new mailbox out of steel and welded it to a steel pole set in concrete. Needless to say, nobody knocked down our mailbox again.
Kick ass! I'm not a hick! Nuh uh, my mail box says so!
Wonder what the toilet planter in the front yard says?
Our hick mailbox actually got knocked down in a drive by baseball bat-ing WHILE I was standing there in the yard!
We had to put up a Rubbermaid one. I considered filling it with concrete and watching the fun.
This is the third post I've read today that has nearly made me piss myself. When I was little, someone firecrackered our neighbor's mailbox. Peeled the metal back like it was a banana. He was none too pleased, and I imagine he (rest his arthritic soul) wouldn't have been too fond of your 'down with the mailbox' clenched fist. (But I am!!)
Thanks for the laughs.
We are without a doubt hicks. This is the only type of mailbox anyone has around here unless you live in an apartment complex. (and there aren't many of them around here either)
Too funny! Love the pics.
Hick here. Mailbox is in what looks to be a whiskey barrel. We bought the house and never changed it. And we've also had ours stolen, too. Stinkin' ninos....
Growing up, we had a Hick Mailbox, and some kids did take it out once. I now have an urban box, but it's just not the same if you don't have to walk a long time to get the mail.
PS: Are those ACID-WASHED jean jackets? ;)
Well I am a certified city girl I have both of your non-hick boxes! We get our real mail from a mass mailbox that our townhouse complex shares. When we moved in though I was obsessed with putting a mailbox up ON our house, I mean what kind of house doesn't have a mailbox?
Hubby obliged and that is wear they stick are flyers. I love hick mailboxes when I see them, I always imagine a lovely, bucolic, country life.
Never imagine ants though. Sorry your evening was interrupted.
That's too funny! I'm a hick too...though do we get urban points if the mailbox is pretty and looks exactly like all of the others on the street due to neighborhood covenants? Hmmmm....
I wouldn't go after them for money either....I did too many delinquent things as a youth too. For most kids, getting caught is enough to stop it.
Coitus interruptus - never pleasant.
Our hick mailbox actually got hit by a (presumably drunken) driver. We had to dig a hole for a new post & everything. Fun times!
I agree with you - let the kids be, but put up a nice steel mailbox, so if news of your leniency gets around you won't be buying another one.
I think you should replace it with the gaudiest mailbox you can find. Maybe in the shape of a fish! While you're at it, get one of those silouettes of a boy peeing!
Ours is mounted next to our front door, but in our mid-sized town (C-U) it varies from street to street. Our mailman is so old, he would probably be quicker if he had a riding route instead of a walking one.
Its funny, I never thought of the location of a mailbox as a sign of urbanness.
I pulled my number of teenage pranks (walking out of a very busy Garcia's pizza place with a huge ficus- why I don't know; stealing road signs, etc.). I applaud you for wanting to let the kids go. As a homeowner now, I'd be pretty irritated. My husband gets irritated when we find random empty beer bottles in the street in front of our house.
Reminds me: we called the cops a few months ago because there was a huge fight outside. Some kids had pulled off the main street and parked on ours. After all the commotion subsided, we found a coat laying on the ground. I looked in the pockets for some ID and found 3 lighters, a package of rolling papers, and a baggy of pot. Oh, and court papers and the ID of the young lady who the jacket belonged to. I was so torn whether to turn this in to the police and get her in more trouble (or maybe straighten her out) or give her a break. Ultimately I decided that this girl needed help and had the officer swing back by and pick it up.
Maybe it is that I am not a hick (cleverly following the rules I have only been a hick twice in my life and now is not one of them) but I agree, let the kids off... I'd be more concerned that my, erm, personal time with the Mr. had been interrupted by the knock at the door. Damn helpful neighbor!!
Wait. I am so confused. I live downright hickily, but my mailbox is one in a cluster of 24 or so.
So where do I fit in?
C'mon, I NEED to fit in, J.!
I not only have a hick mailbox, I am the proud owner of the only outdated hunter green mailbox on my street =)
I'm with you on letting them go ... firm believer it will be paid back when the Mayor or the Rooster decide to spread their teen wings!
The entire post is a comedic short film waiting to be made. You're hilarious.
ooowwww. i'm fancy with my wall mounted mailbox. Now I can feel better about not having Prada shoes.....
Hey, maybe this is a good reason to get rid of said hick mailbox and replace it with a non-hick mailbox at your door. Though, the switch may throw your mail carrier into a tailspin!
My, my, my, I never ceased to be amazed by what I learn about American ways - this is a whole new realm of knowledge that I am completely ignorant about.
When I empty the snail mail box, I will view it in a whole new light, although I may have to put dark glasses on to disguise myself from being mistaken as it's owner.
Cheers
LET EM GO! hawhaw usually i would say give it to em but after remembering back on things I have done, although small I'm glad I got off easy. I miss toiletpapering.. I guess i'll settle for decorating my friends' cars when they get married. BORING. Although that usually involved condoms and window paint..
Once I found a body mold (that of a woman made of plastic that would have once been wearing a swimming suit) on the back window of my car. I wasn't wearing my glasses when I discovered it and I thought my back wind shield had melted into the nice and perfect shape of the mold's breasts.
I almost miss high school.
I would rather have a mail box out front. Ours we have to walk to or drive by to get the mail up the street. in Utah it's common to have a mailbox covered in bricks that match your house
Very good for you to consider the karma involved in the situation. I too have benefitted from the, uhm, patience of my elders when I was a troublemaker teen. I would totally let the perps off the hook at this point.
im a hick then :-)
When living in Ohio we rented this house that its mailbox was so rusty I was seriously scared to touch it some days. I told our landlord we need to get our tetnus shots updated... it was REAL HICK-ISh. :-)
i grew up with a hick-box...and i must say, i miss it. here in the big city i have the kind that's attached to my house...and damnit i can't put any outgoing mail in it and raise the little red bar. i have to get my freakin' ass to a mailbox three blocks away to mail something. the nerve!
no no no no my dear. You know you're a hick when your mailbox is in the shape of a Nascar and your postman's name is Jack Daniel. Now THAT's classy.
Im with you, kids will be kids and as long as noone was hurt - not that big of a deal I think.
Oh, those crazy, interrupting perps. Happened all the time in the hicktown of my youth. (The pranks, not the hanky. Or maybe...)
We have some free spirited youngin's next door that my neighbor is constantly calling the police on for loud music in the summer, etc. No sense of humor, no fun - I'll save my wrath for the real worthy.
VIVA LOS NINOS LOCOS! is my new anthem. I'm gonna go all anarchist on ya now.
I wouldn't know of such travesty. I was never like that.
I didn't set that fire.
Nor did I throw firecrackers at the neighbors' windows.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Good for you for remembering what it is like to be young and, urr, stupid. Way to keep those priorities straight: crazy kids are, really, more important than a cheap ass mailbox.
Mine is attached to my house but it is UGLY: a rustic wooden thing with a canoe and a duck on it. And I live in a city. Downtown in a city. Yeesh. Wish someone would knock it down ....
I am ashamed now, but I was a mail-box knocker-downer. It was an awful thing to do, but.... I did it.
By the way, if I could insure bow-chick-a-bow-bow, I would gladly have my mailbox knocked down nightly!
Reading this I instantly thought of the movie "Stand By Me," and that scene where the bad guys (crazy kids all, including a very cute Kiefer Sutherland) played "Mailbox Baseball."
I love that you are able to remember your own yootful escapades; I think that's a very important thing to be able to remember as your kids start performing their own dumb stunts.
It's certainly kept my kids alive, that's for sure.
;)
You guys were playing with a wah-pedal? What? Kidding.
In younger, more innocent days, my friends and I were known to thieve the occasional piece of restaurant furniture or construction sign or mailbox, even a newspaper dispenser, all in the name of the good old fashioned scavenger hunt. When I worked as a counselor at Boy Scout summer camp, we'd occasionally use our scouting skills to free roadsigns from their posts. But since we were good and conscientious scouts, we never took any signs that might cause an accident. That's how we justified our questionable weekend pastime.
My previous mailbox before moving to Chambana looked just like the first "urban" one pictured here.
My new hick mailbox was also .... INFESTED WITH ANTS! Gross! Mr. Chicken took it apart and sprayed it with ant killer.
Ah, rural life.
Just make a new mailbox out of cement. It'll take down anyone that swings a bat at it.
Sadly, unlike your acts, theirs is actually a federal crime.
You really need lessons in not getting caught. Sheesh.
A free standing mailbox is essentially a hick thing. However, I occasionally see them in those creepy suburban housing developments where all the homes try to look different but only end up looking more alike than ever (no offense to people who live there). Those free standing boxes are begging to get knocked over. Fight for the right to destruct!
Hmph. Guess the perps will be over on my side of the RR trax tonight, offing hick mailboxes with their baseball bats.
You're wise beyond your years — I agree, just buy a new mailbox.
God, you crack me up. Like, seriously. Your past vandalism stories made me snort...and believe that you are, in fact, my SOUL SISTAH.
What about those who are "Hicks by force" not by choice? I am an implant from the North in your neighboring state of AL and we have no choice BUT to have a "hick" mailbox. Thankfully I have never had mine bashed, although I did bash one when I was 15 trying to prove to a boy that I was really 16 and could drive.
I am a real hick. Our mailbox is hunter green and on a post down the driveway. My mailbox has been known to be full of ants, bees and a couple of times a snake was wrapped around the post and I refused to get the mail for days. Our mailbox has been run over 3 times lately (on purpose the kids just take it out with their car) and batted twice. It is starting to look really rough and if it rains my mail gets wet. We are going to replace it but hope we can wait until they find another road to run around on. My teenager that isn't mine but lives here anyway had his car windows busted out and his tires slashes lately too. Oh the peace and quiet of country living!
I love how many mailbox stories were generated from this post..you've had quite the eventful 48 hours fom pervs to vandals...
Bossy is so relieved that her mailbox passes the Drunken Mailbox Litmus Test. It is black, stupid, and hangs near her door - very much like your first photo. It is not large enough to hold actual mail. Catalogues? Pshaw! But by gah, Bossy is not a Hick.
Someone knocked our mailbox off the post a few months back. Might I add that our "hick box" was wrought iron and cost $450! It is a regulation of our neighborhood and I was not too excited about paying for it.......but when they knocked it clean off the post just over a year later....I was furious!
I think it was a delivery truck, because I find it hard to believe kids could have done this!
Luckily, it only cost about $35 to fix......so we're at $485 and rising!
LONG LIVE BOW CHICKA BOW BOW!
No hick mailbox here, it's part of our door. Although I don't feel your pain, I am sorry such an act of vandalism happened to you.
At least you got rid of the ants (for a while)!
That just happened to me last week... only since our nearest neighbor is more than a half-mile away (I'm really a hick!) and we can't see the road from our house, the perps were never caught.
Did I mention that the mailbox was full of mail when it was smashed? Including our utility bills? Yep... almost lost power over that one.
Thank God I have a mail slot. Coming from Texas already makes me suspect in the hick department. I try to deflect such compartmentalization by reminding people that my father was from Vermont. I'm only one half hick.
Our mailbox looks like yours, too. In fact, everyone round here has mailboxes like that--I figured it was a southern thing.
We once got our side mirror smashed when we lived in our old neighborhood. Our neighbor got his designer mailbox smashed but ours must have been too ugly to beat up.
But wait! What happened to Rusty when your husband slugged him for interrupting you to tell you about the mailbox?!
it's amazing how you can consistently turn these things into subjects of hilarity.
ouch on the hick box.
"Everyday I get a bundle of mail and 10,000 ants"
That must make for some crazy reading.
You.Are.Not.Right.
I love it.
I wish we lived in a city where the mailboxes were attached to the houses... I wonder if those mailmen get paid more for going ALL THE WAY to the houses...
Anyway, another great episode here at the house of joys blog... love it!
ha- my mailbox in a very rural area ( on a dirt road that used to be a gravel road) is a post office box down the big road. Most of the year I live in a bedroom community (18 miles from NYC) and have a street mailbox because my mail carrier is too lazy to walk.
when I hear "hick mailbox" only ONE visual come to mind--a lonely country road with a dozen mailboxes all clustered at one end, even tho the houses are all on acreage.
My mailbox is a large wooden thing, kind of like the first image, with a peace sign sticker stuck in the middle. (Before it was condo-ized, our house used to be a commune.)
I'm glad to hear that this is not only a phenomenon in my town. However, it took a strange twist at our house---someone once stole a mailbox from another street and the threw it through the back window of our SUV while it sat in the street (b/c we were having our driveway paved). Glass was everywhere, even in the baby's car seat and all over her stroller. I imagine it must've been a fun bit o' vandelism for the perps, but man, it sucked.
Ah, Redneck Baseball. Those were the days.
Dude... you be one crazy mofo.
Why didn't I find your blog sooner?... Arrgghh.
yes, i know all about mailboxes being mutilated...
when i lived in reno a few years back, some punk kids down the street put a 2 liter plastic 7-up bottle w/ dry ice in my mailbox and blew it to smitherines!
i was as loud as can be and scared the &^%( out of us....
i found parts of my mailbox in the backyard.... and across the street in my neighbors yard...
it was quite scary actually...
i was afraid they'd keep doing it...
and for a long time.. i was afraid to go to the mailbox...
i was not as loud as can be...
IT was as loud as can be...
Well my mailbox is definitely hick! It not only looks like yours, but currently is about to tip over. All it would take is a gentle shove.
Right on Sister. Let them go. Mailbox violence is a federal offense you know. Most kids have no idea what they're getting into.
On the bright side, this is your opportunity to get one of those really, really cool green tractor mailboxes with the big yellow wheels or one made completely of horse shoes.
Ok here's the thing...the NEIGHBOR should put up the new mailbox for his coitus interuptous! FOUL! You DO NOT knock on the door of a neighbors house, when said neighbor has children under the age of 15, after 9pm unless...
A. Said children have been found wandering outside
B. Your house is on fire
EVERYTHING ELSE falls under the "ignorance is bliss" 'til the dawn's early light.
Now on letting the kids go...I am in agreement however I firmly believe that the local hardware stores in rural areas pay teenagers to engage in this practice.
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