[MetalMilitia]

In moving to a new house I was surprised to find that the previous mailbox had been destroyed in a traffic accident. At first I considered building my own using the rudimentary carpentry skills I had learnt in school but realising I had none of the required tools I had to find an alternative. This is when I found BudgetMailboxes.com.
The website was functional and I quickly found a mailbox that would match the contemporary styling of my property. Ordering was a simple affair and within a week I had my new mailbox sitting on my doorstep ready to be installed. This is where my problems began.

For some reason BudgetMailboxes.com saw fit to include none of the fittings necessary to assemble the box. The packaging contained only several pieces of arbitrarily shaped metal and a pencil-drawn diagram illustrating how to affix them to one another. This took several weeks to complete and throughout this time I lost several pen-pals as a result of being unable to receive mail.
Once the mailbox was complete my problems only worsened. I had applied for a job at a local business and after what I felt to be a very successful interview I was told I would be contacted by mail to inform me if I had the job. I checked my BudgetMailboxes.com mailbox every day.
Weeks passed, then months and I had yet to hear anything about my job application. Every morning the mailbox contained a strange dusty substance which I took to be dust generated by passing traffic and thought little of it. One moring I got up extra early just as the sun was rising and went to check my mail. Smoke was pouring from every crack in the box (of which there were many due to its poor construction). Shocked I ran to see what was happening, pulled open the hatch and saw my mail consumed in flames!

I put my hand in to try and salvage what I could of my precious correspondence and was met with a shocking level of heat. It seemed the mailbox was acting as some kind of parabolic lens focussing the sun's heat onto itself and incinerating all that was placed within.

I cursed and with one mighty kick I destroyed the mailbox in a shower of sparks and broken dreams. I never did find out if I got that job and the shame of my predicament prevented me from ever contacting the company again.

I now sit here in a public library typing this with ragged world-weary hands as without a job I could not afford my house payments and was forced to take to the streets and live the life of a migrant. A social reject. A bum.
My bindle contains all that is left of my life and I hope that one day I may be accepted into a housing program. As old man winter cuts a icy swath across the landscape I feel my bones aching for the sweet embrace of death.

I cannot help but imagine how things would have been different had I never visited BudgetMailboxes.com. Maybe I would be in the same situation, I don't know. All I do know is the mailbox I bought from BudgetMailboxes.com was a heap of shit.