SLUG: A09_mailbox_no_dread
SET: A
CONCEPT: The mailbox stopped being the enemy
HEADLINE: Watch the setup video
WORDS: 632

The mailbox stopped being the enemy about three months ago.

I used to walk it into the garage first.

Every day. Same routine.

Set the stack on the workbench, flip through it under that one bare bulb, and pull out anything with a windowed envelope before my husband or the grandkids saw it.

The past due notices went in a folder in the toolbox.

The collection letters went in a shoebox on the shelf above the paint cans.

Whatever was left, the church newsletter, the coupons, the Christmas cards in December, that stack got to come inside.

That was the deal I had with myself.

The kitchen counter only got the safe mail.

I did that for probably four years.

There was a week last February when I sat in the Walmart parking lot after picking up cough medicine for my grandson and I could not make myself drive home.

I had $18 in the checking account.

The electric was two weeks past shutoff notice and I had already used up every polite voice I had on the phone with them.

A woman in the next spot over got out of her car and knocked on my window.

I rolled it down because I did not have anything left in me to pretend.

She said honey nobody should be sitting in a parking lot looking like that by themselves.

She pulled out her phone and showed me a short setup video she had been running for about six months on her own phone at home.

Said it was some little thing that runs off the house wifi.

Twenty minutes to set up on a Sunday, she said.

I wrote the name down on the back of the Walmart receipt with an eyeliner because I did not have a pen.

I set the thing up two days later at the kitchen table before church.

The first three weeks I barely paid it any attention because life got in the way and honestly I forgot about it.

Then a deposit landed.

$146 the first time it came through.

I stared at the phone for a long minute because I could not remember signing up for anything that would send me money.

Then I remembered the parking lot.

Second week it was $604.

I did not tell my husband yet because I did not trust it.

I just kept it quiet and watched.

Third week another one came through, similar number.

By week five I let myself believe it a little.

Then this past Friday morning it was $1,428.

Same sender line. Same time of morning.

I have started making the coffee before I open the phone because I already know about what the number is going to be.

Which brings me to the mailbox.

About three months in, I stopped walking it to the garage.

I stopped needing the shoebox above the paint cans.

The past due notices got paid off one at a time in the order they came in.

The folder in the toolbox is empty now.

The mail comes in through the front door and goes on the kitchen counter with everybody else's stuff.

The grandkids grab the coupons for the pizza place off the top of the pile.

My husband opens his hunting magazine at the table.

Nobody has to be protected from the stack anymore.

That is the part I did not know I was buying.

Not the money.

The kitchen counter.

If you are the person right now who has a hiding place in the garage for the scary mail, tap the button under this post and watch the setup video.

Same one she showed me in the parking lot.

Phone and wifi is all you need.

Pass it along to somebody else who needs it too.
