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At our previous house, we had a mailbox at the road next to our driveway.  When we moved to the house, it had the traditional style mailbox except that it opened on both ends.  That way, we didn’t have to walk into the street to retrieve the mail.  There was a flower bed around the mailbox.  One plant in this flowerbed was a vine that grew up the mailbox post and covered most of the mailbox.  My wife tends to the flowerbeds at our house.  Sometimes she would allow this vine to grow a little out of control.  Sometimes it was so extreme that it was difficult to open the mailbox.

NOTE: The names in this story have been changed. Once you read it, you will understand why.

A few years ago, we had a new salaried employee start at work. I will call him Crazy Bob. I didn’t get to meet him until the end of his first week when I went to lunch with him, and a guy named Ed that was mentoring him in his new job.

On a Saturday evening last August, I was at home eating when my cell phone rang around 8:27 PM.  The call was from a number that I did not recognize.  I answered and they said, “What’s up, ni***r?” I replied, “Don’t know, what’s up with you?”  They immediately hung up.  Less than a minute later I received another call from the same number. When I answered they said “What uppp!” I replied, “Nothing, What’s up with you?”  They hung up again. It would be over 30 minutes before I received another call from the same number.  This time they said, “What up!” I replied, “What up?” Then they asked, “Who is this?” I replied, “I think you have the wrong number.”  I thought that might be the last call but about 10 minutes later they called again.  This time they said, “Hey Tom!” I replied, “This is not Tom.” They replied, “I must have the wrong number.”  I thought, “Really!?! It takes you 4 times to realize it’s the wrong number?”  But I just said, “You must have.  Have a nice day.” 

Last October, my wife and I moved to a new house.  When we decided to put our old house on the market, there were several things we needed to do to get ready.  Each week there was a new area of focus for this preparation.  One weekend, I decided to tackle the task of getting the yard ready.  Our old house had a big shop behind the house and a fence around the backyard area.  There was a bank between the shop and the fence on two sides of the building.  Trees and brush had grown up around this area.  I decided to do some cleaning up around this area of the shop.