I learned a new word awhile back. The word is C-A-I-R-N. But, to explain how I learned it I have to describe how I got my new mail box.

When I bought the fixer upper house it came with a beat up mail box. Beat up but it got the job done: Walk to the curb, open the front, take out junk, close the front, walk back to the house.

I am a person of routines. I try to put as much as possible on automatic pilot (less to think about and saves time for all the other important things that really require thought like how to explain to the Judge that the ticket for the rolling stop was really a miscarriage of justice).

So here’s the deal, I walk to the curb and there on the ground is the beat up mail box, harmed beyond repair. I had been the victim of marauding boys who come in the night and destroy your mailbox. A break in the routine, I’ll leave it there so the mailman will know of my misfortune and I’ll have it repaired in a few days.

No such luck. The good ole Postal Service left me a note that until I replaced the beat up mail box they had to withhold my mail. There was no mention of me being a victim or even regret that they would have to hold off on delivering the daily pile of junk that normally comes, just a very official note that they were withholding my mail. This was the middle of the week and I had no desire to disrupt my routine by going to Lowes to buy a new mailbox. The junk could wait until after the weekend.

I should provide the disclaimer that friends have told me that I am cheap. I prefer to call it frugal but either way… I don’t part with a dollar easily. I went to the big box store and refused to part with that much cash to daily collect junk mail. What to do, what to do…

A few days later I’m in the yard of a friend who had broken up a part of his driveway and stored the chunks of concrete in a neat pile to haul them off. And then it came to me, if I replaced the beat up box with a brand new one I was simply opening myself up to future assaults. But, if I built a nice little fortress around the beat up box those marauding boys would have to come the next time with a jack hammer. I asked my friend if I could have some of the concrete chunks and he willingly agreed.

Despite the fact it looked a little Charley Brown and Alex remarked that it resembled a bunker and Hitler had to be buried under there somewhere we were two proud workers and took pictures of our creation. Let those marauding boys come back. I would no longer be a victim and their marauding would take a lot more work now.

We eyed the new mail box (that’s what we considered it) from every angle then got the bright idea to use some left over house paint to have it match the house then glued on some fake ivy.

We were so proud of it I emailed pictures to all my friends. I was really interested in the impressions of my friend Charles in Australia. He regards me as pleasantly crazy and looks upon Americans with a sense of awe and puzzlement (he doesn’t understand the concept of a dime or a nickel as opposed to ten or five cents, thinks we over use the word “nice” and never use adverbs – you know words like lovely, cautiously, or happily). So when the email reply arrived I was shocked to find:

“Bloody hell. That’s not a letter box, it’s a Cairn!”

He said it like I should know what that meant. But what is a cairn?

Here’s a link to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn but then, you know what they say about Wikipedia…