10 Things: Mailbox Cushion

I noticed it the other day. Other family members insist that it’s been there for a few weeks. I struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation. What does it MEAN?! And then I pulled out a pen and made up a list of 10 Things that could explain this scenario. But that’s not enough. I want to hear your 10 Things too. So get your writing tools, number 1 through 10, and when you see the photo, write down the first 10 Things you think of to explain why, WHY?! there is a plush, velvety, red cushion tied to the top of this mailbox with a blue cord.

Ready? My 10 Things will follow below. Click to embiggen the photo if you like.

GO!

>

>

>

>

>

The mailbox of one of my neighbors

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

My 10 Things: 

1. The cushion adds directional stability to keep the mailbox from falling off its post.

2. The cushion protects the sensitive mailbox from falling branches or acorns.

3. The cushion provides a place for the mail carrier to lean out of his truck to rest his head.

4. Once a week the neighborhood cats gather around the mailbox with the king or queen cat perched on the cushion throne.

5. The red cushion with blue straps is an alternative to tree streamers for demonstrating school pride. Go blue red!

6. The cushion is a teleporter. The mail carrier places packages upon the cushion and they are instantly zapped into the house. (This one courtesy of Sonar X11)

7. The cushion is the signal for a secret underground network, or perhaps the sign of the meeting place of a secret organization. (If cushion is red we meet at the library. If cushion is blue we meet at the Dairy Queen.)

8. Enclosed within the cushion is surveillance equipment that monitors traffic speeds or tries to catch kids who get stoned in the arroyo across the street.

9. This cushion is part of a new trend in front yard decor. Soon all the mailboxes will have plush adornments.

10. This is a showcase cushion. Periodically the homeowner displays his prize __________ to passersby.

Don’t forget to put your speculation, wild or otherwise, into the comments for all of us to enjoy. 

Etude: Accident, First grade fear

Another expansion of an entry in last Wednesday’s episode of 10 Things: 

In the first grade, I changed schools part way through the year. I was small and quiet normally, and on the first day in my new school, I was terrified of everything and everyone. The classroom was bigger, the desks were different and bigger, the other students seemed bigger than my former classmates. My new teacher seemed nice enough (she did, after all, have a Dorothy Hamill haircut like mine), but she had giant owl-eyed glasses.

The boy who sat in front of me that day was named Marc Soto.  On that day, Marc Soto seemed a little bit mean, or at least brashly confident — and why not, *he* wasn’t the new kid. He knew where the pencil sharpener was and how to get to the bathroom.

In my old classroom, if we needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of class, we knew to look for the pass — a big block of wood with “Mrs. Jaramillo’s bathroom pass” painted on it in red fingernail polish. If the pass was in the chalk tray, we could take it, walk two doors down the hall from our classroom, do our business, and come right back. In this new classroom, I didn’t see a big block of wood with “Miss Jackson’s bathroom pass” painted on it in any color of nail polish, or anything at all resembling a bathroom pass. So when I needed to pee, I had no idea what to do. Was there some sort of hand-raising protocol? Was the pass hidden somewhere and I had to find it?

I suppose I must have pondered the possibilities — all except for the obvious, ASK the teacher — for some time. For so long in fact that not only could I not pay any attention at all to what Miss Jackson (who was later confirmed to be very nice and who changed to Mrs. Reynolds the next summer, prompting me to wonder if she was actually the same person and if she’d remember *my* name if hers had changed) was saying, but also could not hold it anymore. So I peed quietly, hoping no one would hear it, thinking that if I peed just a little, maybe no one would notice and maybe I’d be able to hold it long enough to figure out where the pass might be (not to mention where the actual bathroom might be).

Unfortunately once I started peeing, quiet or not, I could not stop.

In spite of sitting as still as a statue, the pee didn’t stay in the chair with me. It spilled out onto the floor in a silent puddle that spread out around me. And of course Marc Soto was the first person to notice. He half stood in his chair and pointed and said something very loud to draw the attention of Miss Jackson.

I don’t remember what happened next, but I know that I survived. I also know that Marc Soto also sat in front of me in second grade and sometimes I thought he was mean and sometimes I thought he was not mean, and once he confused me a lot because he and his family didn’t celebrate birthdays. Mostly I thought that Marc Soto was ok because he ran faster than most of the kids, and, though he once called me four-eyes, he didn’t seem to care that he’d once caught me peeing in the first grade.

Etude: Accident, Truck vs. Truck

Building on Wednesday’s episode of 10 Things, a ramble about an accident.

In tenth grade I had my first and only car accident. I had been a licensed driver for less than a year. I was driving a fourteen-year-old, faded green, 1977 Chevy pickup truck with an on-the-column shift. At five feet tall (if I’m generous) and with the bench seat slid all the way forward, and if I scooted right up against the steering wheel, I could just about mash to the floor the giant pedals of the brake, clutch, and accelerator. With both a license and a vehicle, I had the righteous privilege of offering people rides home from school sometimes. In later years, I might view this as a curse. On that day, I was dropping off two friends before heading home myself.

Our high school had a population just under two-thousand students. Only a small fraction of those rode the bus, and I’d bet almost none of them walked or rode bikes because the school was nowhere near anything at the time. Everyone else got picked up, drove themselves, or bummed rides from people like me. At the end of the school day, two parking lots full of teenage drivers and a pickup lane of buses and parents spilled out onto a winding, descending, narrow, two-lane road that terminated at a busy T-intersection at the bottom of the hill below the school. In the thick of the exodus, getting out of a parking lot onto that road was usually an adventure.

My friends and I were giddy, practically punch drunk from who knows what, likely singing at the top of our lungs as we left school. We survived the merge onto the road and were sitting through a second round at the red light when another truck slammed into us from behind.

I was six or eight cars back from the intersection, and the light had turned from red to green. I had taken my right foot from the brake and pulled the gear shift back and up into first. The tires were loose, but we hadn’t started to roll. My foot hadn’t made it to the accelerator. We hadn’t yet fastened our seat belts.

The singing stopped. The impact threw us forward. All of our books and purses flew into the dashboard and spilled onto the floor. The chassis of the truck was knocked forward so that it didn’t sit right on the axles afterwards.

The guy driving the new red pick-up wasn’t a teenager as you might expect. He was delivering parts for a local auto shop, driving his shiny, manual-transmission truck with one arm in a cast. He had smashed into us going at least thirty-fives miles per hour and had never once applied the brakes.

We lied about the seat belts, puzzling everyone who expected us to have bruises from the shoulder straps. We were ok. Sore necks. Sore backs. A few days of headache. That green pick-up I was driving was a beast, and I credit it with protecting us from more serious harm.

10 Things: Accident

Okay, writers. Here you go. A little Wednesday writing kick in the pants to get some words flowing. Get out your pencil or a blank text page or knife and sheet of bark and number 1 to 10. When I say the magic words, you write the first ten things that pop into your noodle. I’ll meet you in the comments with my 10 Things. Ready? Watch out! 

10 Things: ACCIDENT

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Once Upon Three Proms

As graduations near, Prom season is coming to a close. Recently my aunt, after recounting my cousin’s happy Prom this year, asked if I remember my Prom. 

I attended three Proms with two boys. I married and divorced one of them. At my first Prom I wore a shimmery green dress with velvet bodice and poofy taffeta sleeves and skirt. I bought the dress with earnings from my job as an usher and ticket seller at a minor league baseball stadium (I’ll have to tell you about being a Dukette another time perhaps). At $120, it is still among the most expensive pieces of clothing I have ever bought, topped only by my first wedding dress. The evening was notable for being my latest official curfew (2 a.m.) and a close encounter with a pool table. Aside from the pool table, I don’t remember much about the night.

At my second Prom, I wore the same dress. I added black satin gloves and shoes and a black velvet choker. I can’t remember if I was broke (my paycheck was now eaten by my car) or just didn’t find another dress I liked. I do remember shopping vintage stores around Albuquerque with my best friend. Both of these years we prepared for Prom together, and both years she found the most amazing vintage dresses. One year it was a floor length, black velvet, sleeveless dress with white satin sailor collar, and one year it was a strapless chocolate satin. Both suited her body and her personality perfectly. Our dates (mine different, hers the same) picked us up at my dad’s house. There was a lot of hairspray and giggling and hose adjustment. The night was most notable for the Italian dinner (Capo’s Hideaway), the earlier curfew (12:30 a.m.), and the gobsmacked look my boyfriend’s best friend gave me when I arrived at the dance (followed immediately by the filthy look and cold stare of his date). I had a great time, though I’m pretty sure I missed my curfew.

Dani at 17, getting a corsage pinned on before Prom

By the time I was a senior, my interest in Prom had waned. I was engaged. I was working two jobs on top of a senior schedule full of honors courses and AP exams. I was earning more money than ever, but also planning a wedding and getting ready to move away to college. My family was tense. My best friend and I were frayed. I didn’t think Prom was that important. I offered to work the night of Prom so that my friends could go. Then, the day before, perhaps caught up in the fever of Prom week, I changed my mind. Weeks before, on a whim, I had bought a skimpy little black dress off a discount rack for $12, with no idea when I’d ever wear it. I paired it with my black satin pumps and gloves and velvet choker. I don’t remember who’s idea it was to get my hair teased up into a bouffant up-do, but on the day of Prom, before work, I found myself in a salon with my best friend getting the tease of a lifetime. A bag with silk stockings and garters sat next to my feet. The hair and stockings were my only expenses. 

I went to work. My beehive was a spectacle with my red and white striped polo shirt and made for lively Saturday-night conversation at the ticket window. When I shut down for the night, I changed. I was sent off by my boss, the money counter, and my intern friend Paul. My date picked me up in front of the ball park. The juxtaposition between my fancy hair and my dorky uniform, my fancy, slutty dress and the grimy office were hilarious to me. I have only a vague memory of the dance, of standing in the middle of the crowd wondering where all my friends had gone.

The evening was most notable for the awesome hair, the sexy stockings, the clucking-hen attention of my male coworkers sending me off like I was their daughter, the cleavage, and the profound sense of loneliness in the middle of the crowded ballroom.