Rose Lindenhurst: A simple thing

Rose pitter-patted across the hardwood of their foyer. Harry had always done the handiwork around the house, but today she’d have to install the new mailbox. After thirty-two years, the old one had finally rusted off its hinges. Rose had driven to the nearest ACE Hardware – somewhere on the edges of Dubuque, near the railroad station where all the Chicagoans disembarked to visit their grandmothers.

She’d asked the man carefully, do I have all the screws, the anchors, the drill bits, and the instructions to install the new mailbox? The man said, it seems simple enough, don’t it? And Rose had giggled and told him, I’ve never done anything like this, that’s what Harry always did. So she’d paid and prayed, paid for all the stuff at that store near Dubuque, and prayed she’d get it right. After all, he’d said, it seems simple enough, so it sure must be.

When she opened the door, she got a blast of cold wind in the face – mercy, how this winter was hanging on. February, Iowa had warmed up to a toasty forty-five degrees – thank goodness, the ground was soft that week. But here they were, late March, and all back to snow cover – everywhere. Go figure, Rose said aloud.

But she ignored the weather. She wasn’t ever one of those who complained about cold air – she rather enjoyed being the Spartan while all the men complained about freezing their testicles. Testicles. Rose hated the word, sounded too much like tentacles and she wouldn’t want to crawl into bed with anyone having tentacles.

She took the tape measure, made her markings at fourteen inches apart, made sure the line was straight, and then put her drill bit in the drill. Fell onto the ground a few times, but she picked it up – and drilled her first hole. Easy enough, then her second – also easy enough. Then she aligned the mailbox, just to make sure it’d fit. The holes in the box lined up with the holes in the wall, good – easy enough, she supposed, just like that ACE man had said.

And then she took her anchors and the hammer. She put an anchor in the first hole, but wait a second – it went in way too easily, and slid all the way back. Huh? The hole was too large? Dagnabbit … she’d used a ½ inch drill bit. The teeny plastic package said ¼, not ½. She never had been very good at math – but then again, that was Harry’s domain. He always did the taxes, but he couldn’t very do them from six feet under. She’d have to do them, too.