Mailbox Mayhem

Big box retailer, Lowe's hardware store made a killing selling mailboxes this weekend. Profits probably exceeded the entire Christmas season! In fact, so many mailboxes were sold on Saturday that they ran out. That's because teenagers were caught vandalizing nearly 100 mailboxes Friday night, including my own.

Two rotten little hoodlums, one driving the car and the other hanging out the passenger side wielding an iron bat smashed 80 mailboxes and then tried to hide from police.

I heard the crack of what sounded like firecrackers going off at 3am but I figured it was probably left-over merrymaking from New Years Eve. Fortunately my neighbor's brother jumped to the window in time to identify the suspects car. He called the local dispatcher and the officers arrived in time to nab the 17 and 18 year old teenagers hiding in a random driveway, face down in the front seat.

I'm told that one of the teens is a local high school football player and failed the sobriety test.

Personal destruction like spray painting or egging mailboxes, garages or driveways is one thing but clubbing mailboxes to smithereens while stamped mail blows away with the wind should be cause for retribution. May I suggest buying and installing 80 new mailboxes for starters?

If I was caught doing this at 17 (or any age) my father would kick my ass straight to the moon and then shadow me while I fixed, mended, repaired and apologized to every last mailbox owner in the neighborhood. And that would be just the beginning of my punishment.

Both of these kids have surfaced in the Bethlehem police blotter before so odds are good they haven't learned their lesson nor will they ever. I'll even hedge my bets that the next time we see them they'll be on the local tv news going off to jail for far more violent crimes than this.