The most bizarre event of the summer is one that I am not willing to discuss in public, or indeed with any but my closest friends. So you'll have to settle for this one.
When I got closer I could see that the mailbox had come off its post and was now in the ditch. There was no other obvious damage. Down the road, there was a car stopped half off the road on the right past the neighbor's driveway, with two people standing on the roadside. I walked toward them, my initial thought to get the car's license plate number and leave.
One of them walked into the neighbor's driveway a ways before noticing me and heading back. It looked like a high school age kid. I said to him, "Are you aware that smashing mailboxes is a federal offense?" He didn't reply at first, and then I noticed that he was sniffing, almost crying, very upset.
We walked back toward the mailbox. I asked him his name and where he lived. He claimed he lived "down the road" and his name was Jamie S., and to have had a bad breakup with his girlfriend that night. He didn't want to get in any trouble, he said, and walked back to the mailbox with me and set it back on its post. He appeared to be shaking badly, so I asked if he was drunk, but he denied it.
He asked if he was going to be in big trouble and I told him I didn't know yet. By this time I was getting kind of scared and creeped out—who the hell are these characters?—and the van's back hatch was still open with all my expensive gear, not to mention the house, so I walked back toward the house, closed up the van, went inside and locked the doors, and went downstairs and wrote this note. As I watched from the front door I saw a car pull into the driveway and then back out again, don't remember which direction.
What a bizarre encounter.