The Great Mailbox Massacre

The scene of, The Great Mailbox Massacre

So let me tell you, it's like this: I'm sitting at the 'puter last night, fiddlin' with software and connections for my new camera when a very suspicious BOOM came, well, booming in from the street in front of the Bayou Bungalow. Being a good citizen, and curious, I step out the front door. Though it's post-daylight savings time dark, I make out a car parked in the spot traditionally occupied by my across the street neighbor's brick mailbox and its well-tended attached flower beds.

Wishing my friend the fomer LAPD motorcycle cop was there to lend his expertise, I checked that the driver, the car's lone occupant, was okay. She stopped trying to re-start her chariot and back it off the what had once been a brick mailbox and its well-tended attached flower beds, long enough to say she was fine and almost home and that she'd had a glass of wine before heading home but that her home was right down the street and she didn't want anyone called because she didn't want a DUI and beside, she was almost home.

I agreed it was a tough way to start the weekend but told her she'd need an accident report for her insurance, and called 911.

The local firefolks showed up first, then the constabulary. I gave my name, addy and phone number, then retreated past my undamaged brick mailbox, which, by the way, lacks the attached flower beds, into the shelter of my abode.

Today, new camera in hand, I inspected and photographed the battered bricks and dispoiled flower beds along with their well-tended flowers.

There can be no better way to this tale than by paraphrasing Bob Dylan:

The moral of this story, the moral of the song, is simply that a car should never be where one does not belong. So if you see your neighbor struggling, help her with the load, and don't go mistaking paradise for that mailbox across the road.