It's still difficult for me to talk about it.

It happened a few weeks ago. I got the call while I was at work.

"Honey?"
"Yes?"
"Your car...it doesn't look good...the front end is, well, kinda messed up."

Everyone was okay, thank God, but the car, oh, the car. It's not pretty.

Apparently, someone (who shall remain nameless for the sake of anonymity) was backing my silver minivan out of the driveway and decided to pull up next to the mailbox to check the mail. Unbeknownst to this anonymous someone, who will remain nameless, there was apparently a convention of bees or wasps or some sort of violent flying insects that had congregated in or around the mailbox.

Or perhaps it was just one bee, there are conflicting stories.

Anyway, when this person-who-shall-not-be-named opened the mailbox, the car became filled with angry bees, or perhaps just one bee, flying in an aggressive manner straight into the window and into this anonymous person's face. In a valiant effort to protect the children from the oncoming swarm of attackers, the nameless person in question threw the car in reverse and hit the gas.

Unfortunately, the mailbox, the culprit who housed those evil bees, was right smack in the way. And the mailbox didn't want to move. It wanted to scrape itself all the way from the drivers' side window to the headlight, peeling back the bumper, and making a mess of the car's paint job. And then it wanted to hang open-mouthed into the alley, gaping at me in a cruel, taunting way every time I left the house.

Of course our nameless hero, who saved my children from certain bee stings, or maybe a mosquito bite, felt just terrible about the car. He met me at the door and escorted me to the garage for the viewing. He apologized sincerely and repeatedly, and I have been around long enough to know that not only do accidents happen, they happen just as often with me behind the wheel as not, so of course all is forgiven.

To add insult to injury, we received a letter in the mail last week from the City Code Enforcement Office, stating that we need to repair the mailbox by the 26th or we would be fined. They added another letter in the same envelope stating that we also need to cut the grass while we are at it.

This weekend, the family piled into the car, backed carefully around the twisted mailbox, and headed for Home Depot. We now have a shiny new mailbox complete with reflective number stickers standing straight and tall in the freshly cut grass.

So now I cruise the carpool lane at school with my beat-up car. I think it lends a certain toughness, a sort of 'get out of my way or-I-will-RAM-YOU' vibe. Or perhaps it just sends a more 'This car is #17 on our list of Things Too Expensive to Fix Right Now' vibe. Which is much more accurate, really.



Edited to add: We drove the car to church on Sunday, and as we were walking toward the building, Grace loudly exclaimed, "I didn't know a mailbox could do that to a car! Well, really I didn't know our car could do that to the mailbox, either, right Mama?" The couple walking in front of us audibly snickered.