Today I stumbled upon a block vhod changing out their mailboxes.
The old wooden ones for official metal ones painted brown,
the names of all those living above, neatly engraved on brass plates.
I like seeing people make even the smallest changes to make these blocks more their own.
I thought back to the mailboxes at the top of our culdesac:
Our name was never on our mailbox.
We were number 12, down in the lower right corner of the big metal box on a post.
No one ever bothered much to landscape around the mailbox, but someone always created a walkway with the snowblower when the snow would get above our knees. I didn’t like the mailbox. Not because of what it was, but more so of where it was.
It was on the passenger side. Everyday on the way home from daycare, my mom’s van or my dad’s Tahoe would slow and pull up to the mailbox. We were so close to home, and I just wanted to be there so that I could sit in the big chair and watch America’s Funniest Home Videos, or if I was feeling ambitious, work on one of the many forts inhabiting our basement. We would pull up next to the mailbox. They would dig around in the center console and pull out that little key. The one with the little pink pig keychain in the van or the one with the blue plastic 1 in the Tahoe.
I’m not completely sure why I despised this task so much. Liz and I would fight to NOT sit shotgun in order to not have to get the mail.
It is true that there was rarely anything exciting in there, mostly just bills, an occasional Highlights or an American Girl Magazine would make it worth it. Liz really liked the christmas card pictures that would start coming in every November.
It is also true that if I didn’t take the time to put my mittens back on for this quick jaunt into the cold my fingers would definitely stick to the metal box.
And there was the fact that our little box number 12 was never big enough, maybe 4 x 4 at most, but the mailman would shove everything in there, rolling catalogues to shove them in, only to unroll to the extents of the box rendering them impossible to pass through the frame of the door I was trying to pull them out of.
There was also the inevitable conversation in the kitchen at home, ‘did you get the mail?’, ‘I thought you got it.’ and so on and so forth.
We made sure it was gotten everyday. Even if it meant someone walking back up the hill to get it.
I never really knew which doors belonged to our neighbors, and I was always confused that there were 12 doors, as there were only 6 houses in the culdesac. Someone driving by the top of the culdesac, upon seeing the nondescript metal box of 12 doors would know nothing about the people living below. No name, no address, just a number and a key slot.
I step in closer to examine the brass plates at the vhod, running my fingers of the engraved names.
I’m surprised by their permanency.
I ask the maester installing the mailboxes, “So no one here is just a renter?” pointing at the plates.
“Nope, we are all full of owners, just owners.” He repeats the last part a few times proudly.
“Where do you live?” he inquires.
“Over there in Block 9…. I rent.” I utter the word gently as I now understand it’s not desired.
“uhh” he shakes his head indicating he understands.
We stand quiet for a bit next to each other, admiring the new shiny mailboxes.
I break the silence,
“You know…the other thing is….” I turn toward him with a perplexed look on my face,
“I’m not even sure I have a mailbox….
if I do, I don’t know about it.”
He turns towards me with a concerned look and says,
“they probably don’t give them to renters….”
We both turn back to the mailboxes
‘huh’, I say after a minute.
Slowly, he starts to giggle, his shoulders start bouncing in his workerman’s bibs..
I start laughing, still looking at the mailboxes.
his laughter becomes deeper, years of smoking evident.
We are both doubled over laughing now,
in front of the block in the middle of a sunny fall weekday afternoon, few owners of the apartments above at home, but the shiny new mailboxes looking on.
