Mailboxes

I stumbled across this page with a bunch of random mailboxes. Some of them were cute. They made little houses, little cats, little dogs…really welcoming. I’m sure they brightened the mailman’s day. Here’s one of a cow:

The thing is, I don’t see the point of making your mailbox more attractive. Your mailbox is where you receive pertinent information that has to do with your identity, your credit card information…things that people like to steal. The number one threat to mailboxes is thieves. Making your mailbox cute and attractive is like getting a personalized bank account number.

As long as people are getting creative with their mailboxes, they need to make them creatively intimidating. This guy had the right idea:

I would take it one step further though. This sort of creepy hand is a little off-putting, but it’s still pretty whimsical. It’s almost noble the way the creature (looks like the Geico gecko, actually) is drowning in a sea of neatly trimmed grass but holds up the mailbox like an action hero as he slowly descends to the unknown depths. The fear is in his eyes, but he knows his task is to hold up that mailbox for as long as he can. My worry is that this sense of duty in the face of danger might instill in a would-be thief a sense of righteousness, and he might not be frightened by the otherwise strange-looking beast. He might be tempted to take a closer look, which would then lead to a secondary temptation to commit the federal crime of mailbox theft. That’s why I made this rough sketch of what I would consider to be a more secure mailbox:

Those aren’t flames at the bottom of the mailbox, that’s how I draw grass. As you can see, the would-be thieves are intimidated by the mail box, and that’s why they are choosing to not steal from that box. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it agan: electrocution is the only real deterrent to thievery. What with the forks, the frayed wires, and the fact that the mailbox is a toaster, any slight chance of rain will be a great safeguard against credit card fraud. This mailbox would perhaps be most effective in a place like Seattle.