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The Mailbox Question

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"Your correspondence receptacle is unacceptable," Teal'c announced as Daniel tossed an empty pizza box on the floor and opened a second.

"Uh ... sorry?" He shrugged and frowned at the new pizza. "That sounds like a problem to take up with the decorating committee. I'm concentrating on getting the boxes out of the moving van before we have to pay extra for keeping it late."

Teal'c inclined his head, took three more slices, and finished their lunch break without speaking again.


"Hey, Daniel! C'mere."

Abandoning the impossible-to-assemble bookcase, Daniel stuck his head into the room destined to be his office. "What's up, Sam?"

"Teal'c seems to think it's my responsibility to deal with the mailbox situation." She raised one eyebrow at him. "Any idea who might have given him that idea?"

He pretended to think. "Must have been Jack. I don't even know what the mailbox situation is."

"Uh huh."

He caught a glimpse of her grin and head shake as he ducked back out.


"Hey, Danny!"

He paused, half in his car. "Yeah, Jack?"

"Take T with you, will ya?"

"Any particular reason?"

Jack shrugged as he came up to the car. "Apparently there's something wrong with the mailbox."

"It is leaning rather severely."

"And I was going to fix that! Just not today. I told him that if it bugs him so much, he's free to take care of it for us." Jack sighed. "Show him where the mailboxes are and leave him while you get the rest."

Daniel laughed. "I don't know the layout of Home Depot nearly so well as you do, Jack."

"So send him to find it, whatever. I'd go, but there's that thing...."

"I'm telling Sam you called her a thing!" Daniel slammed his door and locked it with a grin as Teal'c emerged from the house with his cowboy hat on.


"Excuse me, but are you Daniel Jackson?"

He blinked at the box of the ceiling fan he'd been considered and straightened. "Yes?"

The other man flushed slightly. "Your friend ... at the mailboxes...."

"Has he caused some sort of trouble?" Daniel hesistated at the mental switch labeled Doctor Jackson Mode. Harder to negotiate with the foreign culture of Home Depot than P2R-837's native tribe.

"Oh, no! It's just, well, he said you were a translator, I think, and I don't know that he and I are really understanding each other very well. I mean, his English is excellent, but ... it's like he's from a different planet."

Daniel smiled reassuringly and turned as Teal'c approached them. "What's going on?"

"I merely asked this gentleman to explain the custom of familial labeling on correspondence receptacles."

The employee shrugged helplessly at Daniel.

"Putting a family name on a mailbox," Daniel translated.

"I wish to know what the procedure is when the members of the family residing together do not all have the same name."

The employee shrugged. "I guess most people put the man's name on."

Teal'c frowned. "And if the family has more than one man?"

"Oh, ah--"

"We weren't going to put anybody's name on. Besides, if it came down to it, Sam would call us both misogynist pigs and put her own name on it."

The third man looked hopelessly confused. "I can show you our number decals, if that would help?"

Teal'c eyed him. "It would not. There is only one solution."

"We're not all changing our names to be the same," Daniel warned him.

"Indeed; that would be unwise." Teal'c returned his attention to the employee. "You will assist me with the letters. Do you possess a writing utensil?"


"I thought Teal'c was going to fix the mailbox," Jack said, taking Sam's hand as they stood in front of the large living room window.

"He said he had," she replied, leaning against him slightly.

"He did," Daniel cut in from the opposite side of the room. He stood from the couch with a grunt. "Come on, I'll show you."

They followed, confused. "It's still leaning."

"As the stereotypical male in this house, that's your job to fix."

"I already said I was going to! I was a little distracted today rewiring the fan over the bed."

"And we're very grateful for that, aren't we, Sam?" Daniel interrupted, stopping beside the mailbox. "I think he had a different fix in mind."

"O'Jacter? Who's that?"

"Us." Daniel reached behind him and took Sam's hand. "Our, ah, familial identifier, Teal'c said."

Jack reached out and took Daniel's free hand in his. "O'Neill, Jackson, and Carter."

"O'Jacter." Sam still sounded somewhere between horrified and amused. "We sound like ... like some kind of farming equipment."

"Baby, I'll farm your--"

"We sound like home," Daniel said loudly before Jack could complete his own thought.

"Well, it certainly makes the place distinctive. Leaning mailbox with a fake name on it."

Jack pulled away from them both. "I said I was going to fix the leaning! Tomorrow!"

"I do have a better idea for tonight," Sam agreed.

"Does it involve testing the fan over the bed?"

"Not only that."

"Does it involve testing the bed itself?"

"Hey, got to make sure it's big enough for three, right?"

Daniel squeezed Sam's hand and followed his family back into their house -- into their home.