There really is no such thing as a simple household project.

Today, after 21 years of living in my house, I decided we needed a new mail box. The old one was very rusty and the door no longer shut right. We are on a rural route, and as soon as we installed this one after moving here, someone came by playing mailbox baseball and dented in the side. Shortly after that, the entire bank of mail boxes was covered in a drive by spray painting. Yet it still served its purpose until today.

At first, I was going to get one online, finding irony in having our new mail box delivered through the mail. I looked on line and the shipping was as much as the box itself, and I did not find humor in paying double, so I headed down to the farm and home store. They have everything. Finding a mail box and one made in America was quite easy. But, they were out of the exact numbers I needed for it. I went to the Dollar General down the street and I bought a pack of numbers. But, they were black numbers, even though the package made it look like they were black on a white back ground. So, that wouldn't work for a black mail box.

I decide to save time and gas and go to the dreaded Walmart. I find numbers with a reflective background. I buy them because they were made in America, instead of the other package of smaller numbers made in Taiwan. I get home and go to stick them on, and they are too big. Turns out the not made in America ones would fit the made in America mail box better. I decide I will just wait until I go out tomorrow to visit my mom and where they have more stores.

But then my husband informs me that he has already removed the old box and now he has lost his crow bar in the process. I start looking around for the crow bar, because that is something I am skilled at after years of household projects with him. I couldn't find it. In the meanwhile, I get an idea. I can use the black numbers if I put on a strip of contact paper and put them over that. While I was reaching for the contact paper, I got a splinter down my finger nail. Despite the pain, I put a piece of the contact paper on the mail box door and affix the black numbers. Looks pretty good. Husband goes down to put it on the bank of mail boxes we share with the neighbors. He finds his crow bar sitting right next to one of the other boxes.

So it is up. And now the mail won't even run until Tuesday!

There is no such thing as a simple household project.

I bet even here on DU there are a million stories of how "let's just fix this" turned into a major ordeal!