by Carl Susafone, resident of Deer Run Acres
This morning I opened my front door to get my Sunday paper and was horrified at the sight before me. My mailbox was intact. I first noticed that all the other mailboxes as far as I could see had been smashed and I shrugged it off, but my disinterest turned to incredulity when I saw my own looking as good as it did in the display at Home Depot. Why not mine? I felt an emptiness in my gut even after a breakfast of three eggs, a pile of bacon, a short stack, and two slices of toast. What’s wrong with me?
I can’t figure it out. It must have been a carload of those juvenile offenders from Pleasant Orchard driving over here in Joey’s daddy’s convertible, armed with baseball bats. They’ve been nothing but trouble since Joey got his license. But why did they skip my house? Am I not cool enough to warrant meaningless vandalism? I’ve called the cops on them and written several letters to the editor before this rampage. I caught them red-handed egging the skeleton in Joan and her kids’ annual Halloween graveyard display and ratted them out to their parents. Isn’t that enough?
It’s mindboggling, really. Fred and Ethel next door hire one of them to mow their lawn and I hear they pays the kid well. Shayna and Manny across the street pay some strapping jock, I think he’s the high school quarterback, to clean the pool something like three times a week while Manny is at work. Hey, pools don’t get dirty that fast, if you get my drift. Their mailboxes were flattened like pancakes, but not mine. Dwayne and Luwanna’s girls are in a pickup soccer group with a bunch of the Pleasant Orchard kids. It was a homerun for some slugger with their mailbox. It ended up two houses down in Artie’s front yard. But no, my pristine mailbox still sticks out as a beacon of embarrassment. I know I’m the laughing stock of our cul-de-sac. How can I face our neighbors ever again?
I’m calling a real estate agent tomorrow.