It does seem like we are awakened by various odd things in the middle of the night. Fireworks, strange bird calls, an accident.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was hearing coming from a deep sleep to consciousness. It sounded like an explosion and at first I thought our neighbors’ house had blown up. I glanced at the digital glow of our clock on the dresser: 1:30 a.m.

I got up to look out the window and could see a car by one of the pillars that stand on either side of our driveway. There was someone yelling (STOP! I think) and I think I yelled out something similar because something gave me the impression that the person was going to just drive off.

Rick and I scrambled to get into our clothes, turned on the front lights and headed up the driveway to see what had happened. We quickly realized is was our neighbor’s son and his girlfriend. His girlfriend was leaving in her car and attempted to back into our driveway to turn (obviously at a high rate of speed), missed the driveway and ran into the pillar and completely knocked it out of its base! Holy Backup Batman!

She was sobbing pretty hysterically (I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll pay for it …) with blood running from her nose. We asked if she was alright and she said yes. Her car did not look alright. Obviously our stalwart brick pillar reigned supreme in this incident even it was lying there like a tomb, it was surprising unscathed. Her back windshield was gone, the whole back of her car smashed in. It looked undrivable to us. Plus, it was leaking some kind of fluid onto the road.

We asked how it happened and her boyfriend basically said that she had “punched it in reverse.” A lover’s quarrel? Alcohol involved? Yes, probably but can’t say for sure. No reason to be going fast enough to knock the thing right out of the ground! It was a terrible sound I can tell you that.

We headed back in the house while they came back and picked up some of the bigger chunks of wreckage and moved the car off the road. Needless to say it took us both several hours to get back to sleep after such commotion.

This morning we surveyed the damage in the light of day. In this pic you can see the pillar in relation to the street.

Glass everywhere.

And here you can see the trajectory of the light that used to be on top of the pillar and the light base as if they were thrown by Atlas. (Note: the red is part of her tail light.)

The light: amazingly the glass is intact!

And the light base, also amazingly intact.

Here is the pillar on the opposite side of the driveway and how it’s supposed to look.

It will be interesting to see what Dennis (our mail person) does when he delivers the mail today!

Honestly, for living in such a small and quiet community we seem to have more than our fair share of excitement.

Wow! She had to have been really going super fast to do that much damage. That is amazing. What a way to wake up. And never a dull moment there.

Knowing how kind you say your mailman is, he will be delivering your mail to the front door.  Let Big Guy Alex get it!

Hope it gets repaired soon:)

Wow is right. It’s a huge brick pillar, so speed was necessary for sure.

No mail delivery today , so probably someone other than Dennis. Bummer. Just flew right past. No mailbox; no mail; screw you.

Good grief! I’m guessing they had a disagreement and she was angry. Nothing good happens after midnight, you know?

When vandals destroyed my mom’s mailbox in Florida, the post office refused to deliver to her. They sent her mail back to its source, stamped “no receptacle”! I tell you, customer service isn’t what it used to be. Hopefully your post office will be more cooperative.

You might not get your mail. We had something similar happen with our mailbox. (Just basic box on a pole) and until it was replaced we had to go to the post office. You might want to consider getting a temporary box and mount it on the other pillar until you get the other one fixed.

That said she had to really punch it to do that.

Oh my gosh!  So what has to happen to fix the mailbox/pillar?  Did you get her name and address?  Bet she will be driving a little more carefully from now on.  She was very lucky she wasn’t hurt, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a little sore today.

There was a disturbance in my mobile home park last night too at almost the same time.  I happened to be outside watching for the meteor showers when the police came driving up to ask me what I was doing.  After they determined I wasn’t the problem, needless to say I went back inside!  Only saw one ‘shooting star’.

Steve, the only good thing I know that happens after midnight is Santa Claus!

Mom2aej, yeah we already figured that out as the mailman passed us by on Saturday. We had the same idea as you, so this morning we bought a mailbox and stuck it on top of the other pillar. We’ll see how that flys! If it had been our regular mailman I know he would have driven down to the house (like he does if we have a package too big for the box) at least once to ask what happened. But it was someone else on Saturday.  :(

She was mad at her boyfriend and probably had something to drink as well.

C, She is working on a way to fix it. We’ll see since she doesn’t want to report it to her insurance. She might have broken her nose. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have a case of whiplash too.
Are you sure you weren’t up to something nefarious that your neighbors called the cops on you for?

And for all of you: the strangest thing is that our neighbors who we are good friends with and it’s their son and girlfriend who are involved, they have not said one word to us regarding the whole incident. Talk about an elephant in the room. The longer it goes on, the bigger the foot print.

Re: the elephant remark—-
Very. Well. Said.

never a dull moment…