Saturday, January 15, 2005

notes from home

My brother David wrote am amusing email the other day. It's pretty long, but two excerpts are worth noting.

1. David and Dad have decided to get rid of the old and battered mailbox that's stood forlornly across the street from our house for years. David writes:

Parents are doing fine - I helped dad put in a NEW MAILBOX yesterday! Kids were pushing our nasty 30-year-old mailbox over and it was slammed a few times with a baseball bat (middle of the mailbox was crunched-in)... it's a tough job putting a new mailbox in the ground! We opted to take a large 4"x4" square pole of wood and set it in a bucket of concrete as an anchor. A few days later dad started putting the whole mailbox assembly together - it's not an easy job - lots of drilling, etc. yesterday we dug a new hole in the ground, put the pole in, put the whole black plastic mailbox assembly over the pole, drilled and screwed everything into place, and now we've got an awlsome mailbox. I'll take a pic of eht and send eht tew yew. Dad got a traditional mailbox which I think won't last if these kids keep playing with it... they have a mailbox that is called "Ironsides" cuz the entire thing is made of heavy-gauge steel. It's THICK and I'm waiting for the new mailbox to be bashed-in so we can put in the IRONSIDES. Yeahhhhhhhh baby. Yew readie?

2. David writes about the trouble my other brother, Sean (referred to as "Bean" here), is having with his nasty, used Subaru.

Bean is doing fine, we think. His Subaru is DEAD. Well, not the whole car, but his entire suspension system has died. His car doesn't have the traditional spring suspension system like most cars have - somehow his car has air suspension... normally that kind of suspension is reserved for luxury cars. Wonder why subaru decided to put that kind of suspension in a '91 station wagon. Anyway, his car has no suspension system at all now and it is the funniest thing to watch Sean take his car down the road. The car is essentially riding directly on the frame - pretty much like a buggy would be (before they had springs) when pulled by a horse. So any small bump sends his car into a fit of bouncing and wild gyrations up and down, left and right. I followed Sean to a garage and it was probably the funniest thing I've seen all year. Larger bumps make the car actually lose contact with the pavement. Sean has bruises from all of the bumps he took while driving and he's hit his head on the roof before... a friend of his was wearing sunglasses on top of his head and when they hit a bump his head hit the roof, causing his sunglasses to make an indent into his skin. It's so funny to watch the car go - but it's also very dangerous. The Subaru dealership said his entire suspension system has crapped out, and it would cost $1,500 to fix it.

Sigh... I miss my family.


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