The lottery money in the mailbox

My house comes with a standard black mailbox with a red flag at the end
of the driveway. The mailbox isn't a long walk from the front door.
Even so, some people might think it's rather depressing to walk down
there and find nothing but junk mail and bills when the possibilities
of what might be there are infinite.

Taking a Schrödinger's cat approach to probabilities, I know that anything from lottery money to Jack Bauer's left foot is in the mailbox until I go down there and look. Now, if I believe in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, once I open the door of the box and see what's in there, all other possibilities collapse. That is, there's either lottery money in
the mailbox or there isn't.

Likewise, there's either a wonderful new book from Amazon or there isn't, a Georgia Power Company bill or no Georgia Power Company bill, or a left foot or no left foot.

Or, from a writer's perspective, the long-awaited response from the last
publisher or agent queried either says, "Malcolm, we're pleased to
offer you a 100-year contract with a $1.5 million dollar advance for
your experimental novel The Lottery Money in the Mailbox"
or (less optimally) "Malcolm, nobody on the face of the earth other
than a few creepy scientists would read a novel like this. Go away."

But here's the thing. I don't believe in either/or.

Instead, I like the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics which,
briefly stated, is this: when I open the door to my mailbox, the
lottery money is both there and not there, the left foot is there and
not there, as well as anything and everything else that comes to mind.

The challenge, then, for the homeowner is quite simply that of selecting
the universe s/he wants to actualize. For example, if I see problems
with $500,000,000 in lottery winnings, then I must actualize the
reality where something else is in the box and that an alternative
Malcolm Campbell in an alternative Georgia, the poor schmuck, will
actually find the lottery money in the mailbox.

You see the beauty of this way of life, don't you. As long as I view the mailbox from my window, everything I've always wanted has arrived in today's mail. I know the $500,000,000 is there along with the 100-year contract for The Lottery Money in the Mailbox.

With many worlds of possibilities, I'm on top of the world without resorting
to mind-altering drugs, talk therapy or sock puppets. It's an all-time
high that allows me to take on my daily chores with a real or imagined
spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye.

--from my Xanga blog

Good post.

OMG! A kindred soul.



Ann

Dear Malcom,
It is a long way to my mail box. I walk out there with the dogs for the fun of the walk. I know all the bills and what date they are to be there, and they are right on time. My dogs have a lot more fun on the expedition. What lovely smells! A veritable smorgasboard of animal trails to follow this way and that, tails high, peeing on alien markings, rolling in stinky smells, smiling the whole way there and back.

It used to be a lot more fun to go the the mail box before anyone had email. The arrival of the mail lady was an event looked toward.

I would walk out with a little hope that some friend had taken the time to send a letter about their day. I used to send letters about my day. The written word took longer and more thought and I did try to make it funny and interesting to read. Perhaps I had more interesting days, then.

Email has reduced all that lovely thought into a two minute blab or a forward that relieves the sender of any thought whatsoever,


Email and message boards save a lot of time. Instant thought conveyance. I take it as a good thing. Perhaps I only have a two minute blab in me these days.

Love,
Betty

I guess I'm out of luck. I don't have a black mailbox. I don't have a lane with a mailbox at the end. My mail box is in my gate door. Dare I open it?

I can't get to my mail box these days. Tom loves to go to the mailbox. It is an excursion he takes on about noon. The mail is bills, catalogues which I like to look at, and brochures of places to travel to. Dreamy things. Then there are cards of good wishes which I love to get.

When I was a little girl and lived in the city, we had a mail slot in the front door where the mail would come through and sit on the floor of the hall until someone came and picked it up.

I have some old, old, letters from relatives. I love them.

Carol

Here in the UK our mail arrives through a special slit in our front doors.
We are deprived of the anticipation of what might be there as you described Malcom.
If the postman visits while your at home you can hear what arrives as it drops through the slot onto the floor.
If it is a package from Amazon then usually he knocks. If your not in then he leaves a card anouncing he tried to deliver a package and you must collect it from the local post depot.
For our town it would not be secure having a US style mail box things would go missing.

Malcolm wrote:

With many worlds of possibilities, I'm on top of the world without resorting
to mind-altering drugs, talk therapy or sock puppets. It's an all-time
high that allows me to take on my daily chores with a real or imagined
spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye.

--from my Xanga blog

That is a refreshingly new way to view the world. .

Oh and I thought Published Authors was a mind altering drug!
Are you telling me it is'nt?
Then who has been altering my mind lately?
There I was about to accuse Shelagh of being a dealer in mind altering drugs. I am so glad I found out before I did.
The last time I accused someone of dealing I got so embarrassed. I accussed this woman down our street of handing out coke on the street. It turned out she was only handing out Pepsi.

What a craven, crass crime. Clearly the lowest of the low.

Thanks for the kind words for my weird post.

Older homes in the States have those slits in the door or have the boxes mounted next to the door. Part of today's reality is that the post office is going out of style and cutting back on everything, and that includes having to walk all the way up to the front porch with the mail rather than shoving it in a box down by the street.

Wherever the mail is, Abe, I think the same quantum principle applies--or else it doesn't.

Betty, since I have four cats, I don't have any companions to walk to the mailbox with me. If so, I could always pretend not to care about the mailbox, merely being out for a walk, you know, and in that way I'd avoid more quantum entanglements than I do.

I trust this response has stayed more or less in the same weird mindset as the original post.

Malcolm

I'm pretty sure that writing is worse than drugs.

Whether it's due to cutbacks or not, locked boxes down the street are better than unlocked ones on the driveway. I wouldn't trust either my ingoing or outgoing mail to an unlocked box on the driveway. That's a relic of days gone by. Leaving the flag up for the carrier just invites thieves. It happened to my parents recently; a check they wrote to a utility was stolen, altered to over $1,000 and cashed. My dad said he's been leaving mail in the box for pickup for 50 years and didn't see a need to change, but I guess he sees it now.

What does that say about our society?
Why have things changed so drastaically?
The days of leaving house doors or car doors unlocked has changed. And a lock is just a delaying device. If the thief wants to get in, he will.

Where I live, there are still some who don't lock their doors, but that is changing. The change began with the elimination of international border controls. The outcasts of society sought greener pastures to perform their evil and the innocents are ripe for the picking.

I truly dislike the entire concept of locked boxes at inconvenient locations down the street. The post office has had negative comments about this because mail is supposed to come to the door, not an apartment-style set of boxes. It's worse when you get something too big to go in one of those: instead of a postman knocking on the door, you have a yellow slip telling to to come to the PO to get the oversized package. I think not.

On the other hand, I never put anything in the box of any value when the flag is up. And, since I work at home in a small town neighborhood where the box is clearly visible from the window, I don't face the theft problems of larger cities or boxes at the end of half-mile long rural farm roads.

Where theft is a problem, the boxes need to move back to the doorstep, not miles down the street.

My 2.5 cents.

Malcolm

P.S. Abe, you're right, it's changing and it's a shame.

We can still leave doors unlocked, but are more cautious than in the past.

I love electronic key locks on doors, and then one doesn't have to bother with keys. This is good especially up north, where others use our cabin. Of course our code isn't the most difficult to decipher, but then I should keep that secret.

We have no mail box or slot up north. Fed Ex and UPS, and USP still leave packages on porches around here.

Carol

Carol, You don't want us to all appear at once in the middle of the day?
We aren't that scary--I hope.

3/18/2010

Alice..

Am I suppose to receive a Lottery Check
in the mail ? How much ? I can go to London..


Cheers..Joe

Joe,

I hope you win. Go to London anyway. It is a fascinating city.

You are all welcome any time you arrive.

Carol

But your door will be locked.

Abe F. March wrote:

What does that say about our society?
Why have things changed so drastaically?
... The change began with the elimination of international border controls. The outcasts of society sought greener pastures.

Not sure what you mean -are you saying that uncontrolled immigration policies are responsible for this? I'm not a fan of illegal immigrants and the excuses for why we need them, lol, but I wouldn't blame them for mailbox theft.

Maybe he means German mailbox fraud.

Abe lives in Germany, LC.

Ann

Malcolm wrote:

I truly dislike the entire concept of locked boxes at inconvenient locations down the street. The post office has had negative comments about this because mail is supposed to come to the door, not an apartment-style set of boxes. It's worse when you get something too big to go in one of those: instead of a postman knocking on the door, you have a yellow slip telling to to come to the PO to get the oversized package. I think not.

On the other hand, I never put anything in the box of any value when the flag is up. And, since I work at home in a small town neighborhood where the box is clearly visible from the window, I don't face the theft problems of larger cities or boxes at the end of half-mile long rural farm roads.

Where theft is a problem, the boxes need to move back to the doorstep, not miles down the street.

Malcolm, my parents' box is at the end of a short driveway (they're in a suburb), not a half-mile away. I don't think that attaching the box to the house would make a difference, anyhow, because who monitors the box all day?

I take for granted the practice of dropping off/receiving mail at lockboxes down the street, and don't mind the short walk. I accept it as a tradeoff for our country's very cheap postage. Re packages, I often have things delivered at work, which removes having to fetch it at the post office.

I know Abe lives in Germany, but he mentioned international border control eliminations.

I also know Europe has a lot of problems with immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.