Mailbox Plot

I know that I don't use mailboxes as much as I used to. In fact, the only thing I use them for these days is to mail our health insurance premium each month, which I'm so anal about that I now get a money order for (no chance of bouncing) and add two stamps to what is very clearly a one-stamp envelope, then place in an official USPS mailbox by the 1st (okay, the 8th) of each month.

That's why I know when something's fishy.

When I went to mail that very same envelope last week, I headed off the mailbox in front of Publix, which is where I usually kiss my $621 goodbye. To my surprise, the mailbox had vanished. Concrete repaired and smooth. Like the mailbox had never been there.

Huh? Who takes out a mailbox that's been sitting there for 15 years?

I began looking behind me, over my left shoulder then right, like an idiot--where'd that mailbox get to?

I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I thought maybe a Publix customer had walked into it and broken an ankle, or perhaps car hit it in the frenzy of a two-for-one sale, so they decided to get rid of it. That seemed feasible.

Off I went to the next mailbox I sometimes use, over on a street that runs in front of the quiet club where we swim during the summer. Hardly anyone uses that mailbox because it's such a low traffic area.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my backup mailbox was gone too.

Now, it had been a month since I'd mailed a bill, but WTF? Two mailboxes vanished? At once? Who's taking them? And Why? And what am I supposed to do now?



Then it hit me. It's the terrorist thing.

It has to be. Ashcroft either 1) Does not want sleeper cells sending post cards of downtown Kennesaw to one another, OR 2) He has good intelligence that the next strike will involve strategically placed mail boxes across North Georgia.

Wow. Suddenly I was all a quiver. To have walked into the middle of a terrorist plot in my own backyard. I wasn't sure what to do. What to think. Who to call. Then I remembered the instructions:

Go about your daily business.

Hmmm. This was my daily business. I was stumped.

So I took the insurance payment home and made dinner.

Then the next day I drove to the crowded post office--with all the other people who couldn't find mailboxes--and let them handle it. I am now busy making plans on how to mail next month's insurance payment. Because you have to stay one step ahead of the terrorists.

It sure is freaky being part of a Nation Under Attack.