Trying to fix a broken mailbox

Payson’s into power bracelets and has found some on eBay that he asked to purchase.

Isn't he so handsome!  I just had to say it!

So anyway, every day, he’s out checking the mail to see if they have arrived.  We have a locked mailbox that requires a key to open and yesterday, Payson came in upset because the mailbox was broken. 

“The mailbox won’t shut,” he said and I thought he was just frustrated because his bracelets still hadn’t arrived.

At 3:00 in the afternoon, I think it was only about 112 degrees, so I wasn’t happy to follow him outside to examine the damaged mailbox.

“What happened?” I asked, looking at the hollow keyhole and all its missing parts. 

“It just broke!” he said, somewhat annoyed.

“Where are all the parts,” I asked, and we started looking in the gutter and road for broken keyhole parts.

And we found 3 out of 4 parts right away.

Payson was agitated and denying any wrong doing on his part, but it was pretty obvious he had pulled and pulled on the key while trying to close the mailbox, causing the keyhole to pop out.

Finally, he found the last missing piece and I was able to fix it, but not before giving him a nice juicy lecture about chilling out with keys when they are stuck in things.

Jump to a few days earlier when I had pulled the camera out of my purse to discover it covered in sticky juice; juice from Eden’s dripping bottle that I had accidentally left in my purse.  I couldn’t get the camera to turn on and realized it was broken.  

As a professional trash seller, a camera is absolutely essential.  

Without a camera, I’m out of business, so I went to Costco and for $170.00, purchased a new camera, promising myself no more bottles in my purse. 

So, jump back to the day Payson had his broken mailbox key lock incident and received a lecture from me about it and he started messing around with my old camera.  He was pushing buttons, popping out the memory card and batteries and since it was broken, I let him go to town.  I was just about to tell him to just throw the camera away, but for years I have told him not to play around with it, so today was his lucky day.

In all that pushing and experimenting and curiosity, that boy fixed my broken camera!

He walked up to me and said, “Look, mom.  I fixed your camera.”

And he did.  It works great.  I’ve already used it for a few pieces of trash I brought home to sell.

Like this sweet locker priced at $60.00.

And this amazing credenza (78 inches long) I've priced at $200.00.

or this antique Victorian hand-painted dresser, that already sold.

“Mom, you fixed something I broke and I fixed something you broke,” Payson said.

And I had that mom moment we all have, where we realize patience is a virtue not easy to come by. 

Things are things and they can be fixed.

Thanks for fixing my camera, Payson and I’m sorry about the whole lecture thing.