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A penny for a stamp
It's bill time once again, and normally this wouldn't be a problem (well,
paying bills is a problem, but I'm not talking about the actual payment part)
except that starting January 7^TH, the USPS [1] hiked the rate for first
class mail up 1¢. It was only six months ago that I finally used the last of
my 1¢ stamps from the last pay hike (I had precicely enough 1¢ stamps to
cover the remaining 32¢ stampts I had left).
So now I have about 60 33¢ stamps left. Sigh.
So today I made an effort to head off to the local USPS to obtain enough 1¢
stamps to last.
Rob, [2] my roommate went along (as we were going to a late lunch/early
dinner afterwards). Parking was a nightmare; no spots left, so people were
fighting over spots as people were leaving. The person waiting in front of me
was desperate enough to back up, nearly hitting me in order to give enough
room for one person to back out. Fortunately someone else left at about the
same time, giving me a parking space.
I dove around the ashtray, where I keep spare change. I only had yuppie food
stamps (US $20 bills) and did not relish the thought of receiving $19 worth
of change in Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. I was able to scrape up about a
dollars worth of change.
Walking up to the building we could see a line stretching out the door for
counter service. There was no way I was going to wait in that line. We did
walk in to see if the stamp machines served 1¢ stamps.
We were in luck. They did.
“One at a time?” I asked. “Not even a book?”
“This is going to be fun,” Rob said.
“You're too easily amused,” I said, dropping a dime into the machine and
selecting C-2, the 1¢ stamp.
HOW MANY? PLEASE TYPE IN AMOUNT 1-10: queried the machine.
“Oh cool!” I said. I punched in 10 and the machine spit out 10 stamps in a
long paper stream. “Ooh, just like … uh … that game … ” I made motions of
tossing a ball underhanded.
“… yea … um … ” Rob started doing the same thing.
“Skeeball!”
“Yea!”
“Just like skeeball,” I said. I dropped in another 30¢.
HOW MANY? PLEASE TYPE IN AMOUNT 1-10: queried the machine.
“Nice,” I said. “Only 10 at a time.”
“Much better than one at a time,” said Rob.
“Yea, lots.”
[1]
http://www.usps.gov/
[2]
http://www.tragic-smurfs.com/
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