When I went to check the mail – there wasn’t any.
There wasn’t a mailbox either.
I suspect the road-grader clipped it and pushed the debris into the next county. At least that is what happened the last time.
I once complained to the operator about it – but it is impossible to argue with a guy driving a twenty ton machine. You may be able to speak truth to power but not to that kind of power.
To be fair, the road-grader isn’t the only thing that has it in for my mailbox. The garbage truck uses it as a sort of scratching post and the teens who live up the road like to play pin-ball with it.
You would think a sensible person would place his mailbox beyond the reach of destructive forces and sensible people do just that – but we are not blessed with a sensible location.
While most of our neighbors live on straight gravel roads, our road follows the meanderings of Two-Drunk Creek until it dumps into the equally meandering Five-Drunk Creek.
The creeks were to be nothing more than roadside ditches but when the contracts were let out, the young and inexperienced county administrator allowed an older and more experienced contractor to price the work by the linear foot.
The contractor then hired two drunks who had a hard time keeping anything straight to do the digging; hence the meandering.
On the basis of glowing written reports, the young and inexperienced county administrator then extended the contract to hire three more drunks: resulting in Five-Drunk Creek.
Today these creeks are mere dimples on the land, clogged by buckthorn and willows but what was once bad ditch work has become something extraordinary, the perfect habitat for the world’s largest species of snapping turtle.
The first time I spotted one of these creatures I thought an immense boulder had blocked the road. Then it moved. I couldn’t believe anything that huge could maneuver under its own power until it sprinted after a deer.
I asked a neighbor, “What do they eat?”
He answered, “Anything they get a hold of.”
The turtles are the only thing the guy with the road-grader respects.
So what have we here?
We have two meandering creeks clogged by buckthorn and willows where exotic wildlife eats anything that moves.
In other words, what we have is too much of a temptation for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). They declared the area a nature preserve – right up to the gravel road – and God help you if you plant anything, much less a mailbox on DNR land.
So while turtles, creeks, buckthorn and willows are protected, my mailbox is not.
Almost Iowa 
Hah! best mailbox story ever.
The dog ate my mailbox, teacher.
I signed up for your blog two days ago and have not received the validation email from you. Please work your magic to get me on your list. Thanks so much!
Hey Peggy, thanks for subscribing to my blog. WordPress.com hosts this site, therefore I have no control over the list. My next post will be published on Monday morning, let’s see if the email works by then.
It’s ok – it was all junk mail anyway.
Tell me about it… We get at least three credit card come-ons per day. I am not sure why, the credit card industry considers people like us dead-beats. It is the term they use to describe people who pay off their debts every month.
I vote for the snapping turtle. He ate it.
You may be onto something the turtles do like to chew on credit card come-ons
Is this why I see the occasional barricaded fortress surrounding a mailbox?
You bet. Keep in mind though, no one has been able to architect a turtle proof structure. What they want, they get. In the land of snapping turtles, winter is our only solace.
Can you not take out two tortoises with one toss? Camouflage your mailbox as a larger tortoise. This should discourage both turtle and truck attacks.
I considered this – but can you imagine what life would be like with a pack of horny love-starved turtles hanging out at the end of my driveway?
“Yeah, man…turtle-y…”
Dang–prob’y missed a really good TMNT joke there.
Donatello. something. YOU fill in the rest.
‘I tried to talk to driver about this but it’s hard to convince a guy who sits atop a twenty ton machine of anything’ – a sentence rarely heard! Fine tale for early morn over my coffee!
I first learned that lesson while working in a steel foundry. It is impossible to hear anything in a foundry, so the following conversation was originally held in pantomime.
“Set that ten ton mold over there”
“Whrrrrrr.”
“No, over there.”
“Whrrrrrr.”
“No, No, NOO, not on my lunchbox”
“Whrrrrrr, creak, CRUNCH”
“Crap!”
I, too, would feel all-powerful if I sat atop a Machine of Anything.