It was the end of an extremely long day, flying around massive thunderstorms and a low pressure system built up between Chicago and New York City. Of course the ole motto, “Time to spare, fly by air” comes to mind as thousands of passengers were delayed to Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. By the time I made it to my hotel room, it was over 12 hours in the seat of my Super 80. My mind collapsed as I slipped into a mild coma with the blare of taxi’s below and the sound of rain and thunder outside my window.
The ringing of the phone woke me with a start, “Oh crap, I’m late for my sign in” I reach for the phone next to my bed, after two clumsy attempts and a dial tone to my ear, I realize it’s my cell phone that I forgot to turn off. I see two things as I reach for that, one it’s 0130 in the morning and two it’s from my wife. Mind you, she is tough and resourceful so for her to call me it must be a major emergency.
“Hey Honey, what’s up?” In a frantic, very angry voice, she tells me, “The little rat bastards came by and knocked our mailbox down.” My mind is full of cobwebs. “What are you talking about?? Mailbox??” She takes a deep breath and tells me how the sound of a loud Honda with those extended exhaust pipes woke her up with the addition of loud thumps as they smashed each mailbox down our side of the street. “Oh, that’s O.K. honey, it came with the house and I didn’t like it much anyway. I’ll buy another and replace it Sunday when I get home.”
“No,” she says, “they liked ours so much that they tied a chain around the post and pulled that out of the ground as well!” I’m trying to picture this and just see a hole in my front yard. “Don’t worry.” I say, “I’ll deal with it when I get back. Go pull the pellet gun out of the gun cabinet if they come back for some reason shoot at them.” Then I ask, “Did you call the police?” She tells me about the report she filed and I hang up with an “I love you and will talk to you in the morning.” Of course, my mind is thinking of how to deal with my neighborhood insurgents. I am finally able to go back to sleep, but the wheels turn and turn as I toss throughout the night.
Sunday, after relaxing a bit, I drive down to Home Depot for phase ‘One’ of my operation and buy a new 4×4 post, a big black mail box and one hundred pounds of Quickcrete. With my Sawzall, I cut a hole in the bottom of the mailbox, ram the post through to the top, seal the inside with speed tape and then pour seventy pounds of Quickcrete into my new “Yard Art.” After setting the post in the nice hole they left behind and adding the house numbers, it was just a matter of waiting. Of course, to be legal, I would be remiss if I didn’t add the following warning to the side of it, “Warning, hitting this mailbox yard art with any object, may cause death or serious injury”
Then I bought a wireless camera system and place it in the tree over looking the mailbox and on the roof of the garage to capture the insurgents in the act. (More so, to laugh at later over a beer with my Marine buddies) It took another six months for the “Rat Bastards” as my wife called them to come back. Of course, it’s a night that I’m on the road. They decide to throw a big pumpkin at the mailbox which exploded into a million pieces in our front yard. The twenty pound pumpkin didn’t do anything to the mailbox. I think it hurt their pride, so they made the unwise decision to come back at full speed, Johnny hanging out of the passenger window with a baseball bat. He pulls his best Barry Bonds (minus the juice, just beer) and swings for his homerun as the car passes the mailbox. Of course, connecting his baseball bat with a SOLID stationary object that one would expect to explode didn’t happen. It bounced right off hitting his car and dropping in the street followed by yells of pain and “Shit…Mother ffffffffff”as the car raced down the street to the emergency room I’m sure. Hell, how do you explain to your dad about the big dent in the car a broken back window and your two broken arms??? I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that one. Anyway, we haven’t had a problem since. I’d like to think that the word is out about the crazy Marine and his mailbox. But, kids being kids and me being the biggest kid in the world, I can’t wait to use my new secret weapon this October for Halloween. I bought this little block of aluminum that has a trigger connected to a trip wire that when released hits the primer of a 12 gauge pepper spray shotgun shell. I’m going to attach this to my tree overlooking a nice fat pumpkin with it aimed down about two feet in front of the pumpkin. When the “Rat Bastards” try to steal the pumpkin, it will pull the almost invisible trip wire and boy will they get a treat!! One thing about Texas, you are allowed to shoot anyone who is in your yard “At Night” armed or not. Crazy law left over from the days of cattle rustlers. My local Police Officer says I’m within my rights to fire a Warning shot at them and not to worry if it’s just pepper spray or blanks. I just hope that I’m not deployed back to Iraq this fall, so I can see Operation PumpkinHead come to fruition. Anyway, that’s how we deal with “Insurgents” down here in Texas…
Semper Fi,
Taco
The SandGram 
July 11, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Yes, the mail goes in the little box on the side (my mailman loves this thing) No we didn’t have the tape running the night they hit, Yes, my wife puts up with a big kid sometimes…
Semper Fi,
Taco
July 11, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Taco, sir, you’re crazy. I knew there was a good reason I enjoyed your blog. Semper Fi, sir.
July 12, 2006 at 12:10 am
***LMAO***!!!! Too bad you didn’t have the tape running that night…
Our neighborhood had a similar problem one summer. After a neighbor tracked down the little bandits the father of the driver made him sell his car and buy new mailboxes for all he had destroyed….
July 12, 2006 at 3:13 am
I LOVE this! Wish you had a video.
July 12, 2006 at 5:10 am
Sounds like fun. I want to move to Texas! 🙂
July 12, 2006 at 7:37 am
You go Taco !!!! Being that our mail box is a mile away from our house…a lot has happened to it. Stolen mail, pulled out of the ground, bashed, and a live kitten put in it. We now have a PO box. Cookindawg
July 12, 2006 at 10:41 am
I love your idea.
Living in New York my whole life we always had our mailbox on the house.
July 12, 2006 at 11:54 am
Great story, Taco!
July 12, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Once again, you’re giving us ideas!! 😉
July 12, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Now…I’m really thinking I am a wimp. My mail kept getting stolen, so I just got a P.O. Box. That’ll show them..I thought. In California the only people allowed to shoot are the gangs and drug dealers defending themselves against angry victims.
Semper gratus,
Donna
July 12, 2006 at 7:09 pm
ROFLMAO…. grew up partly in rural Wyoming, 45 miles into town to get a PO Box…. and my brother & cousins were some of those “Rat Bastards”. You load the shotgun shells with rock salt – once it pierces the skin, it starts to dissolve…”does “salt in the wound” create a pic for ya?
You have to dig it out NOW (pain – or go to the hospital, and get reported to the cops) or, you have to just wait for it to finish dissolving (it cauterizes the wound – but it takes 4- 12 hours, and INTENSE pain) – and if hey climb into a shouwer or bath to help the dissolving go faster, itburns 3 times as bad…just not as long… only 2-3 hours of intense agony.
Before you think of me as inhumane – please know that I got all this info by watching my brothers and cousins go through it. They did not die from it, not a one….but it did deter them!
It is incredibly shocking to watch these big strong football jocks writhing in the bathtub, screaming for relief from the pain, and threatening that if you tell, your life is over…. I NEVER felt the need to go out and bash mailboxes, or steal watermelon…. EVER!
Hope that helps! Sounds like you got it pretty well under control, tho…. thanks for the memories! (Grin)
July 12, 2006 at 11:11 pm
dude! your a genious. LOVE it!
July 13, 2006 at 5:06 am
Our mailbox culprits are the snowplows. We were told first thing not to buy a fancy mailbox.The county won’t replace it. If you complain, they’ll hit it again right away for good measure and then not plow your road for awhile. We buy cheap mailboxes, and try to make repairs ourselves.
July 13, 2006 at 7:43 pm
I love your style, Taco! You know they’ll be back and you stay 1 step ahead of them. I can’t wait for the Haloween report!!!
July 13, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Between Taco’s antics and Becky’s story about the rock salt, I am laughing my a$$ off. Funny, funny stuff. I sure do love these posts – they just make my day!
~Judy R~
July 13, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Great stuff Taco!
What a whimp I was, I just got a “town” post office box when I lived in TX.
But hey Becky…I remember my Grandpa “salting some butts” when the guys got into his watermelons!
Thanks for the chuckles!
July 13, 2006 at 9:47 pm
I wish y’all lived on my street in Atlanta, GA., it would NEVER be dull !!
July 14, 2006 at 1:19 am
My WWII-vet grandfather had similar trouble in his final years & he cured it the same way you did.
It was lovely to watch he & grandma plot how to make the little (their favorite expletive, not FCC approved).
They would fall asleep with a smile listening for the reverb.
LOL
July 14, 2006 at 1:20 am
Oh, drat. I became so caught up with my grandparents’ cursing that I fogot to say PAY. They plotted to make them PAY…and, pay they did.
So funny.
July 14, 2006 at 2:30 am
Gosh, my street is so boring! 🙂
July 14, 2006 at 5:23 am
Taco, I like your style! They have that law about shooting things in your yard in New England too! I cannot wait for Halloween…you know the rats will be out!!
July 18, 2006 at 4:58 pm
LMFAO! Oh my god… that is too frikkin’ funny.
Becky… rock salt in a shotgun shell? DAMN! I wonder who came up with THAT idea…genius, I tell ya.
July 19, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Liked the Mail-box Wars very much, and the reminder of practical logic from Texas. Here in Northern California (San Francisco) our little neighborhood had a rash of repeated break-ins that had neighbors talking. I so wanted to electrify windows & doors (to electrocute perpetrators). Our beat-cop (yes, we have some) advised that illegality would cause him work, but that “ART” wasn’t his concern. Ooooohh – watch the plethora of lovely, full-color, steel-reinforced, jagged-sharp, vertically-extreme, stained glass “Flowers” decorating window ledges, fire escapes, and springing forth from gutters of concrete along the roofs, sparkling in the sun; urban art.
July 23, 2006 at 6:21 pm
ROTFLMAO!!, Thanks for the idea, but
This being California; I could see the ACLU and the media standing at my front door screaming “hate monger and vigilante” they’d say the kids were from a broken home and it wasn’t there fault. funny if it wasn’t so true.
BTW, A while back I caught some “Modern day Artists” practicing their craft on a fence I had just built.
I had just yanked one of them to the ground and the spray paint can rolled out of his hand, I spray painted the bastard from head to toe.)He was about 18 years old) Almost got charged with assault over that one… (cops were laughing so hard They just took my name and address and took the kid home.)
July 27, 2006 at 2:45 am
you are an evil, evil, man, Taco… but I want to live “downrange” from you — ’cause once they got layed low at your place, they’d never make it to mine!!!! hahahaha
July 30, 2006 at 10:33 pm
hehehe – GOOD JOB! 🙂
August 14, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Dear Major Bell,
Wow….great ideas for handling the mailbox bashers….those little varmints! Glad you’re home, safe and sound.
Remember me writing about my uncle? E.F. “Al” Price (Lt. Col., USMC, Ret.) He’s hanging in there, but we could sure use some prayers. He and the wife will celebrate 60 years of marriage in December. His daughter, Terry, and I are going to the Stockyards in a few days so she can whoop it up a little (in honor of her dad) and I’ll make sure she gets home safe and sound. She’s taking care of both her parents now.
Glad to see you’re bloggin’ away with these great stories.
Best wishes to you and your family.
Meg Parker Sergeant and all…
(yup, pronounced like ‘SARGE’)
August 20, 2006 at 9:31 am
Way too long since I’ve kept up here. This was priceless! These are the reasons I like living in Texas!
I shared this story with everyone in my work group. And, we have unanimously agreed that we want a copy of the pumpkin video, when the punks go after it. PLEASE make sure you have the camera on. if it works, let me know at mbell82@sbcglobal.net, and we’ll work out delivery.
By the way, thanks for your sacrifices. You probably don’t get it enough. None of our service men and women ever really have. My son-in-law came back in March, and goes back next summer. My daughter comes home in October.
And, remember(the closing quote from my regular e-mail):
”Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they
have ever made a difference in the world, but Soldiers don’t
have that problem.”
CSM Joseph Shelley
18th MP Bde
Please take time to let a soldier know they are not forgotten. Visit http://www.anysoldier.com to find out how.