The Death of a Mailbox
Posted on February 23, 2025 Posted by John Scalzi 50 Comments
Over the weekend an unnamed person (not me, although it could just as easily have been me) misjudged where the snow-covered driveway was, turned a little too sharply into where the driveway was not, and snapped our mailbox off at the base, sending it sprawling into the snow. It is, definitively, dead, and thus I was obliged to call the local post office and ask them to hold our mail for us, for retrieval, until such time as we can sink a new post and put a mailbox on it. And while this will give me a daily excuse to leave the house, all things considered I would rather have the mailbox.
That said, it was an accident, accidents happen, and aside from the poor mailbox, no one was hurt; there wasn’t even mail in it when it was murdered. It could have been worse. And honestly if this is the worse thing that happens to us (materially) this winter, we’re doing all right. Farewell, mailbox, you served us well.
— JS
Although I had heard that this administration was seeking to kill the post office, I did not realize that they could possibly be targeting the boxes themselves…
In my best Dr. McCoy voice.
It’s dead, John!
Does anyone know why the American end-of-driveway mailboxes started? In the UK, like in your cities, we have letter slots in our doors. Even in the countryside post/mail is delivered to the door, otherwise it’s not classed as delivered safely and securely.
Not a criticism, just curiosity.
It is a metaphor.
RIP your mailbox. Yes, here in England we have these slots in the door with a sprung flap to stop the draughts. They don’t always push the mail items right through so you can come home to a freezing cold house due to the heat loss. Our Royal Mail postman always wears shorts whatever the weather and time of the year, something about staying cool with all the walking involved. When we had a house in France there was a numbered mail box at the end of the street for us with the boxes for the other houses. If you wanted to send something, you could just put it in the box with with the correct postage stamps and leave an orange indicator showing and they would take it for you, a handy arrangement!
Stuart Daley: I don’t know the specific history, but in some rural delivery areas in the US, the property “driveway” can be several miles long and rough and unpaved. Mailboxes are often grouped in a bunch on a main road or junction (which is also pretty rural), and residents drive down to pick up their mail—and their newspapers, too, in the Olden Days.
I don’t know how common long drives are in the UK, but I’m betting the physical circumstances have something to do with the difference you note?
End-of-driveway mailboxes mean that the USPS driver doesn’t have to leave their truck, they can drive right up to the mailbox and put the mail inside. Since they never have to leave their vehicle, they can do their route faster. If there’s a package that won’t fit in the mailbox, they’ll stop and get out, but I’m not sure how common that is.
To our esteemed host–so sorry to hear about your mailbox. In the house I grew up in, my parents had the fancy brick-enclosed kind, and in the 20 plus years they lived there, my parents had to replace it at least three times, either because a drunk hit it, or a teenager thought it’d be funny to drive by and bash it with a baseball bat.
Mary Frances – yep, mostly short driveways. 1/4 mile would be exceptional. Unless you own a mansion, then you have servants to collect the post for you. Despite what Downton Abbey shows, most of us don’t have servants, but my wife does – me!
‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This mailbox is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker!
‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the post ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies!
‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig!
‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!!
THIS IS AN EX-MAILBOX!!
Have you considered the temporary measure of a large bucket, put the post in, then fill around with sand or gravel? That ground won’t melt for a few weeks.
I did read a story of one person who’s mailbox kept being mown down by local kids “having fun”. Until he sunk a rebar 6 feet into concrete and they wrapped their car around it. Not sure how true it is, but it would prevent such “accidents” knocking them down.
Ed Crankshaft lives in your town?
@Stuart Daley
My guess is that these mailboxes are a thing of practicality. I imagine it would slow down mail delivery significantly, if the mailman would always have to drive up to the house in the rural USA.
I’ve browsed a bit through Google Streetview. Seems that these boxes are most in use in the suburbs and less in use downtown.
Two Chapman points to David.
Ramming Speed!
saluting the ex-mailbox
So forlorn
On a sidenote (if you want to emigrate) mailboxes might me standardized in some countries and if so, will be standardized differently from country to country.
When I moved to Switzerland there I’ve read of people who weren’t allowed to use their US style mailbox because this didn’t comply with Swiss standards.
Usually you shouldn’t run into problems, if you get the same type of mailbox as your neighbors have.
At least whoever took out the mailbox has the excuse of snow. I took out our last mailbox because I’m short and I was driving partner’s truck and not paying attention to the width of it.
Not only did I take out the mailbox, I took out the Japanese maple tree that we’d just planted there. The tree recovered … the mail box did not.
To this day partner remains steadfast that I did it on purpose so we’d have to get rid of the cheap, weather worn plastic box and replace it with something nicer and sturdier. He’s wrong about that, but I won’t deny that I took advantage of the situation to buy a much nicer, sturdier mail box with nice house numbers on it. ;)
When we first built our house out in the country we had a basic mailbox like yours (the one we bought was claimed to be “INDESTRUCTIBLE!” and the box had a picture of a bulldozer driving over it). Every fall around Halloween kids would drive by and knock all the ones along our road off their posts. After a couple of years I got tired of resetting ours and ended up embedding a vertical steel pipe in concrete as deep as a posthole digger would go on each side to thwart the kids driving by with baseball bats.
A few years later someone put a McMansion up on our road, and installed a fancy and expensive cedar mailbox at the end of their drive. When I drove by it for the first time all I could do was shake my head. Sure enough, a few days later it was nothing more than expensive cedar splinters alongside the road, and a few days later they had the same basic mailbox as everyone else along the road.
Goodbye dear mailbox. You did your duty. Rest in peace. 😏
There are rumors of a chainsaw-wielding maniac attacking governmental functions, so draw your own conclusions. It could also be one of DeJoy’s last moves before passing on the wrecking ball.
Let’s see how things go from here.
accidents happen, and aside from the poor mailbox, no one was hurt; there wasn’t even mail in it when it was murdered.
That’s what the Mailuminati want you to think! WAKE UP SHEEPLE! This mail slot goes deeper than you imagine! Do the research! 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW is across from the Spy Museum in Washington! Can you honestly tell me that’s “just a coincidence”??? No one’s receptacle is safe!!
accidents happen, and aside from the poor mailbox, no one was hurt; there wasn’t even mail in it when it was murdered.
That’s what the Mailuminati want you to think! WAKE UP SHEEPLE! This mail slot goes deeper than you imagine! Do the research! 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW is across from the Spy Museum in Washington! Can you honestly tell me that’s “just a coincidence”??? No one’s receptacle is safe!!
ROTFL! I thought the same thing when I saw the headline to Scalzi’s post today!
I went, “Wow—I guess killing the post office is going really fast in Trump Country!” Then I saw it was the physical mailbox outside his long driveway…. 😂
That poor mailbox! My sympathies, to you, as well. I’ve had to replace such a mailbox, post and all, and it wasn’t fun.
According to the National Postal Museum [1], rural locations in America had boxes out by the street at least as far back as the 1890s, presumably to make it easier to deliver mail to houses set far back from the street. According to the USPS [2], it wasn’t until the 1920s that they required everyone to have some sort of box/door receptacle rather than allowing hand delivery, and beginning in the 1930s they allowed anyone to have a box at the curb to make it easier on mail deliverers in suburban areas (which had front yards/setback houses). When suburbia exploded in the 1950s, it then became the standard for all houses to have a box at the curb even in cities, or group boxes for apartments, etc.
Tl;dr American houses have boxes instead of door flaps because even our suburban houses are set back from the street and it’s a hassle for delivery.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030528200109/http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/resources/6a2m_soapboxes.html
[2] https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100.pdf
stay tuned for the season premier of the latest addition to the Law & Order Franchise…
In the United States Postal Service’s system of criminal justice, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups:
The postal police who investigate crimes against packages
and the utterly bored assistant district attorneys stuck in a dead end career path who prosecute these mail offenders.
(Most of whom are male and likely drunk due to being bored and horny. Feh, teenagers.)
These are their stories.
—Opening narration of Law & Order: Parcel Package Protection
Bum-Bummm!
tonight’s episode: Science Fiction Author Meets Frictionless Icy Snow
Although it looks like you already had one, these days the post office is trying to encourage people to install extra large mailboxes that are big enough for priority mail boxes.
@Howard NYC: I’m not sure the Law and Order franchise is the right home for this. Perhaps a spin-off of the NCIS or FBI franchises — US PIS?
I lived years ago on a street at the end of a curve in the road on the way out of the street. It was essentially a right turn with no stop sign. We got nailed every winter, when cars skidded into it. So many mailboxes.
@Stuart Daley: I read that same story in Harper’s Magazine, lo these many eons ago. Searched the archives for it to no avail. So either it was an apocryphal tale, or maybe it’s a crime to own a mailbox capable of inflicting bodily harm on the local yobbos!
Transparent bid to reboot “The Inspectors”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inspectors
“Hold my mail” is a lot better than “Hold my beer”.
One of my coworkers did this with a brick mailbox and totaled her mini-van– just losing the mailbox is better!
Sorry to be a nudge. You meant “worst” and yes this winter has had plenty that could have been worse.
Where I grew up, we had the archetypal mailbox at the end of a quarter mile long driveway (quite rural), which was nigh-impassable in the winter because of a steep slope midway. I wouldn’t wish driving down that thing on any mail carrier. Where I live now, there are many of those mailbox clusters in a common location, usually at the front end of a battered road ‘paved’ in gravel and potholes.
My parents’ suburban house had a mailbox attached to the wall next to the front door.
My NJ small-town house had a mail slot in the door, providing access for mail, crickets, and cold air (though only to the airlock/coat room. I miss having an airlock, not just for efficiency and comfort but for keeping the cats from getting out.)
These days I live in a condo with a tiny useless mailbox, and we use a mailbox store instead, and pick up letters/packages about once a week. The downside is we’ve lived here 30 years and are on our 4th mailing address because the mailbox stores have moved or closed; the current one’s UPS and more financially stable, plus they email us when we get packages.
What…no post-mortem?
I too had a hand-made cedar mailbox, made from leftover cladding and built to resemble our house. Sad to say …
Termites ran it over. The buggers!
Many of US residential streets don’t have sidewalks, so mail deliverers are not going to walk door to door. Hence curbside mailboxes (RIP).
An idea for a forgiving permanent post.
Get spiring that go from the cement base to mail box height.
In a cement base place a metal rod that does NOT the mailbox but falls well short.
From the bottom of the metal mail box weld a pipe that does NOT reach the bottom.
The spring is the exterior while the two inner non connecting rods quickly bouce the spring into the orginal location.
Design lasted 30 years on an outside curve in connecticut.
One can hit the box but the truck tire type spring absorbes the engery.
First things first- can you blur the house number on the post? I’m a paranoid old lady! I think you can trust most of us, but let’s not make it too easy for the less stable individuals to find you!
Secondly, you can buy a nifty new mailbox of your choice. I live in a subdivision and the HOA (home owners association) limits the choice to a regular mailbox in black – kind of like yours. Just don’t make your new one too special or the local miscreants will be picking on it…
You do NOT have to drive to the USPO every day to know what’s in your mail.
You can sign up for a standard program to send you a DAILY EMAIL with digital photographs of each piece of mail. No cost.
It is called INFORMED DELIVERY. We have been using it for months now (in Portland OR). Knowing what’s there often means we can wait several days to collect it.
[This seems to be ad-supported, because a photo is often accompanied by an ad for the sender.]
Bill Dennis said: “If you wanted to send something, you could just put it in the box and leave an orange indicator….”
In the US, it’s a red metal pop-up flag — and it’s a great way to attract mail thieves. We had outgoing mail stolen in 1998, in the first few months after we moved to a place with a rural-style mailbox. When I called to report the theft, the man on the other end berated me as an idiot for using it. :-(
@michelel72 I know that show! It would often be on the TV at the nail salon I frequented. Because of the tips on avoiding fraud at the end of the show, it counted as an educational show.
In a later season, the son who used a wheelchair joined the agency as an intern and later part time investigator.
Ugg, digging a new post hole.
Someone killed my mailbox a few years ago. Fortunately, only the top half of the post was damaged. I found one of the plastic boxes that only needed half a post and I hacked off the damaged top half. Also, advantage, the new plastic box has a door in the back so I can take the mail out without standing in the road.
Dear Catsb,
A simple Google search (john scalzi ohio address) turns up John’s address in (at least) four different reliable sources. If someone wants to find him, they’re not going to be reading his blog in the hopes he’ll dox himself.
Lest someone issue that old homily about how one can’t be too careful… well, yes one can, when one has to put in effort or inconvenience to address a triviality. Why should John spend any minutes of his time messing around in Photoshop when he can just drop a photo into his blog?
pax / Ctein
Ask around if any of your neighbors has a PTO auger/post hole digger. They can make short work of this.
*PTO – ‘Power Take Off’ allows you to attach power implements to the back of a farm tractor.
Re Postal Service Informed Delivery, it fails to ‘inform’ us of about a third of mailpieces. Your mailage may vary.
… what?