Ebjournal Revisited.

Arrrrr, ‘Tis Me Postal Booty!

Stuck wrote a story about postage and getting stamps about a year ago on his website. I would link it, but I can’t find the story on his site… so, I just thought that I would mention that this story is much in the same vein.

Early this morning, much too early for normal people, I went to the USPS website to find out if I would be able to buy postcard stamps. (I’m sending out little greeting postcards to my kids to say “Hey! I’m the one with the facial hair…”) USPS said that the post office nearest my school opened at seven. Sweet, I thought, I’ll be able to get stamps at 8, and get to my teachnology class by 8:30. No problem, right?

I got to the post office at 8:00. I walk up to the door, and there, staring me in the face, is a LIE. The post office, it is not open. Oh sure, the drive-up windows are open, but the walk-in, talk to postal employees part of the building didn’t open until 8:30. So, I could get back in the car, or use the automatic stamp dispensing machines. I didn’t have any cash, just my debit card, so I didn’t want to deal with the drive up windows. I went inside to the lobby to investigate.

There are two machines in the lobby. One is a fancy, new computerized stamp machine that you can print out for packages. The other machine was the good ol’ vending machine that has a variety of stamps in it.

Focus: The computerized machine took credit cards, but did not have postcard-value stamps. The vending machine had postcard-value stamps, but did not take credit cards.

Gentle readers, it hurt my brain.

Quickly I calculated the cost effectiveness of sucking it up and buying 2 books of 37-cent stamp books (20 stamps in each book)=$14.80 vs. $2.30 for ten postcard stamps x 3 = $6.90 PLUS the fee for running across the street to the ATM ($3.50)= $10.40.

I headed for the ATM at the bank across the street. I walked up to the ATM, and it gave me the “Unable to Process the Transaction at this Time.” Twice.

Fine. I crossed the other street to the gas station, and got my cash. This has now turned into a ten-minute ordeal. I crossed the street again back to the post office, and slipped my crispy $20 into the vending machine, and got my three sets of postcard stamps, slapped them on the postcards, and went on my merry way.

Oh, one more thing.

Guess what happened when I was done? I got the $13.10 due back to me in change. Ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting. Thirteen dollars in Sacajawea coins. I felt like a pirate with all me gold coins as booty. (arrrrrr…)I headed off to class with my postal booty, thinking about the fast food worker who would take my plunder at lunch time.

Good thing I wore my cargo shorts; normally, I don’t even cargo.

RSS Trackback URL 17. August 2005 (20:52)
Filed under: General, Random