186) Ever since the Stranger article came out earlier this week, all the mailboxes I haven’t yet photographed have really been ramping up the attitude. Listen, I’ll get to them when I get to them, and no amount of passive-aggressive tweeting is going to move anyone to the top of the list. But then there was this guy. I drive by this box a couple times a week, and today it was throwing me some major stink-eye. Not wanting to deal with this every time I’m in the area, I decided to just pull over and take care of it then and there. Notice my aloof stance.

185) One thing that I’ve learned during the course of this project is that mailboxes can be very single-minded. Take this guy, for example, His job is to use his fine snorkel feature to collect mail from cars, not from pedestrians who might enjoy using the snorkel. Because his senses aren’t terribly acute, however, I found that you can get away with using the snorkel if you just pretend to be in a car. Silly mailbox.

184) Woo-Hoo! Yes, I’m always happy to do a mailbox selfie, but clearly something is going on in this photo that is adding to my usual excitement. Well, it could be that while I was snapping this photo, another photographer was across the street documenting this whole crazy scene for the Stranger! That’s right, my strange obsession has deemed me to be worthy of a write-up in their Person of Interest column. You can check it out here: Check it out, I even snapped a freaky meta picture of me being photographed while photographing. Trippy, man. I just realized that the Stranger photographer totally forgot to get a model release from the mailbox. Whoopsie!

183) Listen, this is obviously a very fine mailbox and I’m sure it has many fine qualities that I could discuss, but there’s another factor in today’s entry that I find — dare I say? — even more interesting. I’ll call your attention to the cross street, specifically Diagonal Ave S. This is one of those supremely awesome street names that reveals that sometimes the city planners just come up dry. There they were, assigning names to streets in the area — Marginal, Hudson, Dawson — and they probably thought they were all done for the day, when someone said “hey, what about this street that runs at a diagonal?” (And yes, I just made that up. As far as I know, it may have been named after the intrepid explorer Winston J. Diagonal. Which is another thing I just made up.)

182) Mailboxes are very dedicated to their cause, and rarely — if ever — give into distractions. Take this dutiful box, for example. For many years, the gas station across the street has been flirting with it, even going so far as to boldly displaying its phone number in a desperate “call me!” plea. But the mailbox has no time for that, choosing to keep its attention focused forward, ready to receive your mail.

181) It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I’m late for my appointment with a mailbox. This has never been a problem before, because if anything, mailboxes are patient animals. They can wait for hours or even days for someone to stop by and feed them a letter or small package, and never will you hear a word of complaint. That was, however, not the case with this guy. From half a block away, I could hear it flapping its little blue door, tossing out barbed witticisms like “Oh, look who decided to join us,” and “Working hard, or hardly working?” So yeah, he was being a jerk, but he wasn’t very original.

180) “Hey!” you’re saying, “I see the mailbox, but where’s that guy who’s always with the mailboxes?” Would you believe that I’m right there, hiding in plain sight?! It’s true! I used my color-shifting abilities to blend into the wall, essentially becoming invisible. Scared the hell out of the mailbox when it heard me speak.

179) This box has nerves of steel. Sure, it’s got everything of steel, but those nerves are ultra-fortified steel. How is it that it can remain in position day-in and day-out, with this giant lady teasing a frosty cold bottle of Coke like that? I’d give in within about four seconds, but not our friend here. Amazing.

178) “Hey box, how’s it going?”

“Oh, you know, David… same old same old.”

“I hear ya. Hey, sorry about the tagging. That looks painful.”

“It only hurts my soul, David. Only my soul.”

177) Once again, I have to extend my thanks to city officials for installing these great workout stations around Seattle. I for one enjoy being able to get in a little core exercise while out on mailing errands. This mailbox is an excellent personal trainer, too.