216) Night Out Series (1 of 4). We visited the Queen Anne neighborhood to attend a play at On the Boards and found ourselves with some time to kill before the performance. Naturally, I took this as an opportunity to grab some mailboxes, so settle in! We’re going on a mini-adventure! First up is this box directly across the street from the venue! What a cultured box it must be! Day after day it gets to hear theater-goers discuss the latest shows. This is a happy box.

215) You hear about crime on the streets, but it doesn’t really hit home until it happens to you. There I was, just trying to grab a quick photo when, without warning or provocation, the mailbox pinned me up against the post and took my wallet. In broad daylight! Fortunately, the mailbox is bolted to the sidewalk and wasn’t able to make much of a getaway, so I took my wallet back and kept on walking.

214) As I’ve said several times before, I will never pass up the opportunity to enjoy a nice sit while out hunting mailboxes. It’s made even better when I can enjoy a nice backdrop like this one at Lyon’s Grocery! But hey, notice anything a bit unusual about this box? Normally, they’re installed so the slot faces the sidewalk, but this one is turned 90 degrees. Call your city council members and demand answers!

213) This is one of those scholarly mailboxes you may have heard about. You know the type, situated on a college campus (in this case SPU) where they can absorb all the smarts just oozing off the students day in and day out. Don’t engage this kind of box in a trivia contest… you’ll lose.

212) You’ve probably noticed by now that I identify quite a few mailboxes as being sad. Well, add this one to the list. Positioned directly under the Columbia Street onramp, this box knows that its days of watching merry travelers jump onto 99 are numbered. In a few years, the viaduct, and this ramp itself, will be but a memory, leaving the box with an uncertain future as the waterfront begins its shaky transformation. Sad, sad box.

211) You’ve certainly heard of tourist traps like the Oregon Vortex and other such places, where the laws of physics supposedly don’t apply (spoiler alert: they do). Well, I think this building — home of Icicle Seafoods — might qualify for such a designation. Why? Because despite being on a relatively quiet street, cars magically appeared every time my camera timer clicked down from 10. The street would be deserted. I’d set the timer and run up the stairs, counting down from 10 in my head. 4… 3… 2…1… CAR! After this happened a few times, you can probably appreciate why I threw my arms up in victory when I finally saw that I was getting a clear shot. Oh, this box? His friends call him the Icicle Box. He thinks it’s because he’s so cool, but it’s actually because his friends think he’s a drip.

210) Whenever I see a mailbox stationed outside a bank, I wonder if people ever mistake it for an ATM. Maybe in a drunken state people walk up, drop their card in the slot and then wait for money to come out. Yeah, I bet this box could tell some stories.

209) For reasons that I do not at all understand, I’ve always had a fondness for the Swedish Club on Dexter. I’m not Swedish. I’ve never had one of their Swedish lunches. I only own a moderate amount of IKEA furniture. But whenever I go by it, I have to yell out “The Swedish Club!” It comes as no surprise that the mailbox standing by outside the club is very clean.

208) Another first! All my data told me this box was supposed to be one block south from this location… yet here it is. Not only that, evidence suggests that it was installed at this spot relatively recently (note the white discoloration on the sidewalk around its feet). I have never — NEVER! — found a box that had been moved. If anything, they are quietly “disappeared,” never to be seen again. This box obviously has some friends in pretty high places.

207) There are two things I want to say about this picture. This box is on Thorndyke, an absolutely evil stretch of road that is cursed by anyone in Seattle who does distance running. It goes for about a bajillion miles at just the right grade to ensure a total muscle burn. And it’s uphill both directions! The second thing I want say is that absolutely everything in this photo is crooked.