The Story Behind the Blue Mailbox

My partner, Doc. B, and I have been together for quite some time. Almost eight years if I’m to be more precise. And “precise” is precisely the word behind the blue mailbox – or rather a lack of preciseness. Is that even a word? My spellchecker did not catch it, so I’m going to trust and go with it.

For as long as we’ve been together, we still experience those moments where we just don’t connect in our conversational exchanges. These are the moments we have affectionately dubbed “blue mailbox” moments. Here’s why.

We were preparing to sell our home and had been doing the little extra, inexpensive touch-ups that you do before you put the sign in your front yard. Thanks to HGTV, we now have a label for this - “curb appeal”. In any case, one of my jobs was to replace the old, boring, standard, black metal mailbox with a new, snazzy, cedar-covered one. I had spent a great deal of time picking it out, pulling out the old one and installing the new one - complete with Quickcrete® and a level. I was quite proud of myself of course.

Later that weekend we were going out to run errands and as we got in the car, Doc. B. says to me “we need a blue mailbox”. I looked at her incredulously and said “what? I just put up a brand new cedar mailbox and now you want a blue one?” She returned my look of incredulity with one of annoyance – what she wanted was to stop at the post office so she could drop off some letters directly into the postal “blue” mailbox.

The house has long been sold and we continue to have these blue mailbox moments. I expect, and look forward to, many more of them in the years to come.