At the post office today, I learned something new. If I had an unused stamp that was attached to a self-addressed stamped envelope that a business had sent us, or if I mistakenly attached a stamp to an envelope with the wrong address, I used to snip it off and glue it onto another envelope. The postmaster today wouldn't accept it. He told me that it is fine to bring in the envelope with the unused stamp attached, and they'll refund the money or give me a new stamp. But any stamp going into the mail must be attached to the current envelope and cannot have been stuck onto anything else first.
Okay. That's good to know for future reference.
But today it took all my gumption not to burst into tears in the post office over that 82 cents.
So I proceed to the welder's place to pick up my pots whose handles had fallen off last week. When his assistant fetched my order, I asked her how much I owed her. I expected somewhere between $5 and $10, and I really have no clue if I was anywhere in the ballpark. But Denise told me I didn't owe them anything; it was "a donation to the cause." Overwhelmed, I thanked her. Granted, it was probably no big deal to them who fix great big honkin' pieces of machinery. A little handle on a little saucepan maybe isn't any more to them than sewing on a button would be to me. But it meant a lot to me that they did the repairs out of kindness, without cost to us.
And a few minutes earlier I was stressing over 82 cents.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Post office refused to take my glued on stamp, but did not mention about returning envelope and getting new stamp. :-(
ReplyDeleteHe wouldn't take my glued-on stamp either. I guess it's the nice thing about living in Podunkville: the people want to help out in these ways. He wouldn't have had to tell me about bringing in the envelopes, but he did. They are SO nice at the Darien post office.
ReplyDeleteUnexpected kindnesses are the best kind and touch my heart the most. Glad you were blessed that way!
ReplyDeletePaula
Is this a new policy from the P.O.? I have beeen cutting out (or carefully removing) and regluing unused stamps for years and have never run into a problem. I'm surprised it would even be noticed. What do they care as long as the stamp has not been used?
ReplyDeleteI have a few envelopes lying around with unused 39-cent stamps. I wonder if this policy of buying back or replacing unused stamps would apply to those?
>>Is this a new policy
ReplyDeleteI think so. I don't know how recent the change was. I too have cut out unused stamps and glued them onto different envelopes. But it's not allowed anymore.
>>envelopes lying around with unused 39-cent stamps
Yep. It would work for them too. I went into the post office this week with 34-cent, 37-cent, and 41-cent stamps. The postman was very apologetic and said he'd let it go, except that somewhere down the line it would be likely to be caught. Then the packages would be sent back for insufficient postage, and I would've wasted the other stamps I had paid for. That's when he said that they are perfectly fine with giving you credit for any unused stamps, but they have to come in ON the envelope to which they were attached. I asked him if I could go home and get the envelopes out of the trash and show him that it was cut out, and that they fit into that spot, but he said he couldn't. (Actually, that would've cost more in gas than the stamps were worth, now that I think about it.) But yeah, you can take in the old envelopes with the lower-price stamps.