The Day I Killed the Mailboxes

Some days are good, some bad, and then there are days that you do something epically stupid.

Connor had been playing in my van today, and I forgot to go back out and see what he'd messed up. Well, he left my headlights on, and when I went out to go to Taco Bell to get some quick food for dinner (don't get distracted by my lame dinner fare, just stick with the story), that's when I discovered the battery was dead, or at least drained enough that the car wouldn't start. So, I let the car roll backwards to make room for Zen to pull his car in front of mine to jumpstart my car, and then I hung out in the house, waitig until he got home from work.

When Zen got home, zip, zip, I jumpstarted my car, feeling so smart and sassy that I could do some car stuff all by myself. I put my car in reverse, and whipped it around in a sharp reverse turn just like I always do when I leave my usual parking space in front of the house to run errands.

But I wasn't in my usual parking spot.

And that's when the big bumper-car crunch happened. I looked behind me, and to my horror, discovered I'd run over the neighborhood U.S. Postal Service mailboxes. Totally demolished them. Totally. Killed 'em. Yep, they're dead. When Connor came outside later, he kept saying, "What did you do?!!"


Although deeply, deeply embarrassed about doing something so stupid, I was secretly proud of my "tank", or The Beast, as Gil calls it. Dude, I totally plowed over the mailboxes bolted into the concrete, but that car, despite a now-jammed-all-the-time back hatch door, is still going strong. Tuff stuff.

I got out of the car, and just went and stood over the carcasses. My neighbor was sitting on his steps, and his wife came out, wanting to see what the big noise was. I just kind of ignored them, because I'd just done something so stupid. Several cars came and went, viewing the spectacle, and one stopped to ask if I needed any help. I stood there dumbfounded, kind of brain dead. What. Had. I. Just. DONE.... Zen eventually got me going, suggesting I call 911 to get them to come write a traffic report, so we'd have somethig to give to our insurance company. Inside, I looked around for a phone, and made a 911 traffic call. Zen had something along the lines of "Do you realize you could have hit someone?" No comfort for me. About 45min to 1 hour later, a policeman knocked on my front door, and he said something along the lines of, "I don't know if I should laugh at you or not." He wrote up a case file, so I'd have some info to give to my insurance co. and to have when I call the Post Office in the morning. He was really nice, and commisurate about it. It may be the first time I wanted to hug a cop. A girl can always use a hug at a time like this. Chuckling a little at me, but sympathetic too, it seemed. He asked me (referring to Zen), "So what does he think about all this?" I said Zen was just annoyed I had done something stupid.

Another Connor anecdote:

After both Dani and I yelled at Connor to put his melting popsicle in the freezer, he burst out into tears. A few minutes later, he came to me to tell me that me and Dani had "killed him" and that we'd "broken his heart."
Then, he wanted me to take a picture of his sad face. Weird kid.