“Have you checked the mail yet?” asks my beloved wife, Marsha. It is pouring rain. Our mailbox is at the end of our driveway.

I put on a raincoat and trudge out there. Empty. 

Back inside, I order a gizmo that fastens to a mailbox. When the carrier puts the mail in the box, a flag will go up. I’ll be able to see if we have mail from a window in the house.

After the gadget arrives, I read the directions. The thing will only work on a metal mailbox. Ours is made of very thick plastic.

I have to get a new mailbox. 

I go to the store to buy a new mailbox, steel post and a bag of concrete mix to anchor it. I also buy a plaque on which to stick our house number. This trip would be easy enough except I pulled a muscle in my back this morning. 

I put everything in the big cart except the bag of concrete mix, which weighs 4.2 tons. My back, if it could scream, would scream. I give up on lifting it.

A tiny woman wearing the blue vest of a store employee comes down the aisle. I ask if she could help me put the bag in my cart because my back hurts. 

“Are you nuts?” she asks. “The answer is no, but I have another solution.” 

She reaches into a big box and hands me a squishy plastic bag that weighs about 2 pounds. 

“You break a seal in the middle of the bag and mix the two halves together. Then you pour it in the hole. It forms a foam that will expand to fill the posthole and will anchor the post,” she explains. 

The next day my back is feeling fine, so I dismantle the old mailbox. I grab a posthole digger and dig a hole for my new steel post, right next to the old wooden one that I have sawn off below grade. 

Having read the directions, I know that the new mailbox has to be at a certain height. The new post is surprisingly short. It will not go very far into the ground. I finish digging and, using a level, some stakes and some rope, make sure it is plumb. 

Now it is time to mix and pour the 2-part foam into the hole to anchor everything. The directions tell me to mix the stuff for 15 seconds, cut the bag open and immediately pour it in the hole. It will foam up and harden very quickly. The directions also tell me that there is enough of the stuff in the bag to fill a hole that is 8 inches in diameter and 4 feet deep. My posthole is only 6 inches in diameter and nowhere near 4 feet deep.  

I dump the whole bagful in the hole. It immediately begins to expand. It fills the hole in seconds and then begins to grow upward at an alarming rate. It extends 2 feet up out of the hole. It spreads out at the top. 

It is a gigantic, rigid-foam mushroom with a black pole sticking out of it. 

The next day, I use a saw to cut off the excess above-ground foam. Then I mount the new mailbox, the flag gizmo, and the house number thing. 

Time. Expense. A gigantic, plastic mushroom. All to avoid a few futile walks out to the mailbox. One other thing. The frame that is bolted to the top of the mailbox to hold our house number blocks the view of the new “you’ve got mail” flag. 

Jim Whitehouse lives in Albion.