Male Box

This makes me smile. It makes me grin. I like this so much I tried to peel it from the back of the mailbox, violating several federal laws, but it wouldn't cooperate. Something about two boys in baseball caps that gets me.

Can't you just hear these two?
"Let's go to your house and play Wii."

"Can't. My dad's watching the game. What about your house?"

"Uh no, my mom said she's tired of looking at me."

"Hey let's climb the mailbox," Leader suggests.

"Better not, might get hurt," warns Follower.

"You're chicken."

"Am not."

"Are too."

And in a suburban Lord of the Flies moment, Leader turns his baseball cap around, the one with his name monogrammed on it, and scales the side of government property. "Hey, you gotta get up here. This is awesome!"

"OK, I'm coming up." Follower struggles with the climb, watching as Leader inches toward the edge.

"Geronimoooooooo!"


Maybe it's just me but I find boys fascinating. That fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants mentality, that renegade spirit, that act-now-think-later philosophy. So different from my planned, programmed, sensible existence as a mother. I marvel at the opposite of me.

But if I find my two hoodlums on top of the mailbox in our neighborhood, you can bet I'll march right over there and ruin their fun. "You two get down right now. Have some respect for property. This is unacceptable. You know better than this," and then I'll take their picture. But then I'll shoo them into the house and put the Nintendo DS in time out. Because boys need limits like rivers need banks. The picture, though, would make me grin. Because mothers need sons like oceans need waves.