“Where’s the nearest letter box?” read the text I sent to Kari as she approached her lunch destination just outside Cleveland. In my hand was a DVD from netflix ( La Femme Nikita) that needed returning, and I didn’t want to expend extraneous effort working out where to post it.
A minute later the phone started ringing. “What’s a letter box?” came the (not entirely unexpected) response. “Where do I post a letter?” I attempted to clarify, and received directions into Eastown to the nearest Post Office.
Having visited said Post Office on a few occasions, I attempted to clarify, and at last discovered that the niggling question in the back of my mind had been correct all along. To send a letter or small package, I simply had to affix postage and deposit it in the mailbox affixed just next to the house’s front door.
So simple! I’ll know better than to use the phrase ’letter box’ from here on in.
[For readers in the US: In the UK we don’t tend to have “mailboxes” but instead have a ’letter box’ in the front door of the house, through which letters are pushed so that they land inside the house. When we want to send a letter, we’d put it in a ’letter’ or more usually ‘post’ box, which is usually found on a street corner, every few blocks.]