Huntsville does not deliver mail directly to homes, instead there are community mailboxes for every street. It works pretty well because you don’t have to worry about stopping your mail for vacation, there is a mailbox built right in for handy posting and it excellent for parcel delivery. If you get a large parcel, they will place a key in your box to a larger mailbox that is large enough for a parcel. You open the “parcel” mailbox, get your parcel, and throw the key into the mailbox (the one where you would mail a letter). It cuts down standing in those long lines at Shoppers Drug Mart wondering why if there is 2 wickets, there is never 2 people working.
The “city” has nice modern boxes, the locks are built right in the door, and the post office assigns keys. The post is delivered through a large door at the back that is the size of the entire community box and we have keys only to smaller doors on the front. The hinges are smooth and the door opens sideways, making for easy retrieval. Out in the boonies – where we live – the new community boxes slowly in and we have one of the old greenies. Each individual box has a loop for your own lock, which you have to provide yourself. But the post office will remove an unwanted and unknown lock. Say if the previous tenants leave in the middle of the night taking your bird bath. The greenie boxes have the hinges at the top and a little flap at the bottom to go over the loop. In this case, the postal worker opens the large door at the front to inside mail, therefore, all the individual box doors are smaller than the box itself.
This is also a good point to give some advice. If you live in Huntsville and need a lock for your postal box in the winter, do not get a lock that has the keyhole on the FRONT of the lock. This leads to many days where your Maclean’s magazine, bill or late Christmas gift from your mother cannot be accessed because the howling wind has blown snow into the keyhole. The below zero temperatures finish the job. It doesn’t matter if it is pretty blue with a lovely matching blue key. Get a bottom keyhole version or – like my neighbour has done – create a practical, if not attractive, lock protector using zip top bags and duct tape.
I also have a covetousness about skin care products. I am convinced that I can buy line erasers, acne preventers, eyebag depuffers to increase my contentment with life. Perhaps this is true, the problem is, you cannot find out because there is always one more that might hold the answers. Fortunately, living in small towns, my limited access can easily contain my desires and forcing me to find such items on the internet. This particular January, I fell in love with Pangea Organics facial products (thanks to some delightful samples) and decided to order the whole range. Come on, if I ordered enough, I got free shipping and Acai and Goji Berry Mask. Wowee! Pangea Organics is a great product line, using glass bottles in some instances, and plastics in others.
I ordered and checked the mail as often as the weather would allow. Finally, the temperature and the post agreed and after fussing with the lock and the flap and bending over to peek in the box – I saw the 6 sided brown box that we all like to see in the mail. I reached in to take the box, and found that although it fit into my individual box, it could NOT fit through the door. I turned it, I bashed the corners, I tried it diagonally. Alas, contentment so close, but yet inaccessible. Eureka! I had an idea. I had to take out the other mail and take off my Vancouver Olympic mittens and put them on the hood of my car. This allowed me to open the box while was still in my mailbox and I could take the individual bottles out of the box without removing the box. I stuffed all the items into my coat pockets and locked up the mailbox sensing products beautiful scent already. I leapt back into car, and happily turned the car around, and got back on the road back to my house. Soon, soon, beautiful skin, and contentment.
Whoosh! What was that? My red mittens!! My mail! Over the car, into the middle of the Road. I pulled over and watched a tonneau covered truck run over my mittens – but I could still save them! I ran quickly out into the road when there was a break in traffic, and grabbed my mittens. Quickly turned, increasing the centrifugal force on my pockets, causing me to dump half of my Pangea booty into the road. Ack!! I worked so hard for those. Okay, grab the bottles, mail, mittens, back into the car. Safe.
Whoa, thank god I am unemployed, otherwise, I would not have time to pick up the mail.
When I got home, I realized that one of the individual boxes was slimy and particularly scentful. One of my beautiful products had broken in transit, I got it in my coat, on the mail, on my mittens, and as I have found out each mail checking – in the mailbox. (Don’t worry, they replaced the broken item, no questions asked)
For two weeks, I have checked the lovely scented mail box to get our mail, and found it stuffed around the now empty box. Each time, I thought, I need to get a knife, or leave a note for the postal person. Oh, well, it works for now.
But today, the box was broken down, and neatly placed in my box allowing me to take it out through the door.
February 13th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary Event: Finding my Australian Wild Plum & Willow scented mailbox fully accessible again without having to ask my postal person to take care of it for me.
The Daily EO 