Stamp Fiasco

Why do these things always happen to me?  My husband answers that questions with " because you are not paying attention to what you are doing, you are always in a rush, and you do too many things at the same time".  I prefer to believe its some mystical curse.

I rarely use postage stamps.  Most of my correspondence is via email. My bills are paid using online bill pay and the only time I really use snail mail is to write a thoughtful thank you or when an online bill is inappropriate.  For efficiency sake, I keep a roll of stamps in my upper left hand desk drawer.  It is at my downstairs desk that I write any correspondence so that makes the most sense.  They sit in the same bin as my return address labels.

This weekend I had a fairly large amount of mail to distribute.  My son wrote out about a dozen thank you notes, I wrote a large tuition check, a check to a political fund raiser and 3 positive RSVPs.  Really feeling on top of everything at this point.  My desk is clean and I am good to go.

Last night, I am writing out another check and rsvp only to have my husband notice that the stamps I am using are 39 cent ones.  Being the postage idiot I am, I say "yeah so"?  He informs me that it now costs $.44 to mail a letter and why am I using old stamps.  Ah cuz I didn't realize they were old stamps.

What a nightmare.  Now, I have no idea how long this has been going on.  I have not received anything back in the mail (thankfully I always use a return postage stamp) and I have no way of remembering what I have sent out with said old stamps. I hear it can take upwards of 2 months to get poorly postage mail sent back to your residence.  Now what?

Do I ask my son to rewrite all of his thank you cards or simply let people think he has no manners?  Do I resend rsvp's with new checks, call hostesses late  or simply pass on all the events I never really responded to?  Do I call the school and drop off another tuition check or hope the US Postal Service cuts me some slack on this $.05 discrepancy?

I will only buy those stamps that are good forever, from now on.  I had no idea such a stupid little task could cause me so much grief.  I hate stamps.