I don't think it can be blamed on COVID-19, but I'm sure that will be the excuse.
We had a couple of inches of wet-ish snow a few days ago and, as usual, my maibox took a hit. Not a direct hit, but the weight of the snow as the plow goes barreling past tends to bend the box. This time, it not only bent the box, it also ripped it off the plywood base it was screwed to.
Because this is pretty much an annual event, and because if the snow plow doesn't get it the kids who celebrate the end of school by going out and bashing mailboxes probably will, I don't buy expensive mailboxes. I get the standard steel, rural delivery boxes, but the size 1-1/2 (slightly larger than the standard). So after lunch this afternoon I made the pilgrimage to Lowe's and bought a new mailbox, some stainless steel screws, and stick-on numbers. Got it home, opened the box -- and the mailbox is crushed. The door is just as misshapen as the one I was going to replace. :sigh:
So, I reattached the old one to the base, pushed and shoved to reshape the box to pretty much the original arch, and then hammered on the door a bit with a small hammer to get it to close. Tomorrow I'll head back to Lowe's to see if they have a new mailbox that isn't crushed. They only had two in white, and I took the one with the better-appearing box. Apparently appearances can be deceiving.
While I was there, I wandered through the lumber aisles. Good grief! The prices of plywood, and even OSB, are astronomical. How can anyone afford a new house today? And the stuff is all warped. I saw 2x4 studs that looked like they'd been steamed and bent to make a large longbow. Some of the plywood wasn't much better.