Some Assembly Required

By Uncle Hans

The damned kids have hit my mailbox again!  That's  the fourth time in 18 years.  When this was a problem at my house on Spooner Lake, I built a box out of steel square pipe and that solved the problem.  I should have moved the box with me.  I think the weapon of choice is a baseball bat, while leaning out the passenger window.  This nice $30 plastic box did not stand a chance....

 

.....so now it is off to the machine shop to buy materials for a new "vandal-resistant" box.....

  ......so far, I have $40 invested in the aluminum flat and angle stock ($40 is the minimum at the machine shop, these are probably $10 worth of scrap parts in reality)  Add a $30 trip to the hardware store for nuts bolts, magnet latch, numbers, and I am ready to start building.....

......then, I burn up my old drill by working it to death.     A heart attack, I think.   Add $42.95 for a new drill.  I also broke two drill bits.  This aluminum is harder than I though, tough enough for a baseball bat, I'll bet!!.....

......Add the numbers and we are ready to mount the thing.  Now bring on the little vandals!  This happened between 0700 and 1000, as I left for work early and returned to find the pieces strewn across the driveway.  I called the cops as usual and they made a full report as usual, but justice will never be served.

    But when I did this 25 years ago in steel, they hit me one more time.  The box was unscratched, but the mounting post was loosened and had to be reset.  The bat did no damage (probably hurt the kid more than the box!), so they resorted to bashing it with the from of their vehicle.

      But I took IMMENSE PLEASURE in finding some plastic grill parts in the dirt at the base of the mounting post.......

By Uncle Hans