The Little White Lie

A few days ago, I noticed that the new mailbox that my hd purchased about 18 months ago, which then sat in his car until two weeks ago, was in, of all places, the living room. Now, I am certainly not the best housekeeper in the world, but I am fairly certain that I did not put it there. So I asked my little darlings, “Why is that mailbox in the living room?” To which the response was two blank stares. “Um, I’m waiting.” More blank stares. Time for the full court press: straight to the weakest link, “Conor, do you know why the mailbox is in the living room?” Feet shuffle. Looking away, “I was just sort of looking at it.” Now I know that there is more to it than that, but seeing no immediate damage, I just let it go.

So, several days later, I am getting ready for our first field trip of the year, and have charged up the camera, but notice that, as usual, I haven’t moved the pics to the ‘puter, so there is no storage space. So, as a quick fix, I start going through the file to delete the 40% that are always out of focus (I wish someone would come up with a prescription glasses camera). And, then, I finally discovered the true story behind the mailbox incident: there are several pictures of our miniature poodle inside of the mailbox!

“Oh, Conor! About the pictures of Cleo in the mailbox…” Sheepish grin, “But, mawum, he fit into it, and he even sat down and everything.” Well, it was pretty funny. “Be that as it may, I don’t think that little dogs necessarily want to be stuffed in mailboxes, so let’s not do that again, OK?” “OK”

And why do we always have a back-up mailbox? Because, living in a rural area, kids actually still do go around and vandalize and smash mailboxes. One time, they went up and down our road, putting wads of newspaper in mailboxes, and lighting fire to them. The problem was, that they then immediately closed the flap. Stupid redneck true story.