Fielder

Who knew that the handsome brick mailbox in front of my new house was just yard art?

I’d always wanted a brick letterbox, and when I bought the older house and saw the mauvy pink edifice, I was thrilled.

I did everything just right. I filed a change of address form. Stop dropping my bills at the tacky old black metal box on March 10, I told them. Take it to that pretty box that matches my house across town.

Each day I’d rush out to my new receptacle and open the lid.

No mail. Not even a notice that I’d won the lottery. What the heck?

Rarely a day passes when I don’t receive greetings from Ma­cy’s or Dillard’s or the city of Den­ton utilities or one of my other creditors.

Every day, I’d stop on my way in­to the garage and check. No mail.

After the first week I added myself to the end of the long line that snaked out of the post office into the lobby and waited my turn. Twenty minutes later, I told my story to a polite woman be­hind the counter. She directed me back into the lobby to a half door where waited a really nice man.

He was sorry about my maillessness but it might yet be another week before anything crossed the portals of my letterbox. Four­teen days was about normal for a change of address, he said.

Where was my mail right now? Could I pick it up? It was being held in Fort Worth, he explained.

I wasn’t quite as patient the second week and kept opening the lid to see if maybe something — maybe my Southern Living magazine — had escaped from Cow­town and was waiting to enlighten me on wall colors and window coverings.

No mail.

What were they doing with my stuff in Fort Worth, I wondered. Were they reading my TV Guide and ordering pink flamingos out of my Collections Etc. catalog? Were they stacking up my bills and betting on what would be turned off first?

On day 17, I was visiting with my neighbor from across the street. Still not one letter, not one political diatribe, not one bid for cash from the NRA had graced my brick mailbox, I told her. She looked at me funny.

“You don’t get your mail in that mailbox,” she said. “We have community boxes up on the next street. Don’t you have a mailbox key?

Nope. That took another trip to the post office with the sale contract for my house to prove I live there. A bill with my name and address would have done, but of course I didn’t have any bills at that address.

Now I have not one but two keys to the mailbox, but I still don’t have my mail. Postal em­ployees have to go out and change the lock. Maybe by Monday, 21 days later, I’ll be able to go on a postal archaeological dig for my new auto insurance card, the caftan I ordered to replace my tatty purple robe, and indignant in­quiries from my creditors.

So what to do with a nonfunctional brick mailbox. Planter? Bird feeder? Somebody help me here.

I really can’t fault the post office for this. It would have been good information for the seller’s real estate agent to pass along. Maybe she thought the ugly cubicles at various points in the little neighborhood should have been a clue.

If I owe you money and you’re wondering where I’ve been the past month, take heart. For what it’s worth, the check is in the mail.