My (missing) two cents

So I'm sitting here in the room that faces the street, jerking my head up every time I hear a car go by, planning to fly out of my house like a madwoman when I see the mail truck.

You see, my husband kindly brought me a whole bunch of stamps from the office. In a moment of naivete/inability to think clearly, I did not ask him WHY these stamps were of no use to him at the office, I simply started affixing them to my Christmas cards (which for whatever reason I put a ridiculous amount of effort into).

This morning I slid a six-inch-high stack of envelopes into the outgoing mail slot and returned home to see the number 37 on the stamps that were left on the roll. As in 37 cents. Two cents less than is required to send a letter in this country.

When I saw this I chuckled and said to myself that minor inconveniences like this are a great opportunity to remind ourselves of how many blessings we really have. No, kidding. I uttered a slew of obscenities that would make a pirate blush, damning these insufficient stamps for preventing me from spreading holiday cheer.

I wrote up a note to tape to the boxes in case I miss the mail lady, but ended up scrapping it because it read like it was written by a disorganized, slightly neurotic control freak (I wonder why): "Dear Hi postal woman ma'am [can't remember her name, not sure how to address her]. The stamps that are taped to this note are for the stack of envelopes in the left outgoing mail slot that have $0.37 stamps on them. Would you mind adding these $0.02 stamps onto them? Or if that's too much trouble you can call me at the number below and I'll come down and do it (if you have a cell phone). I would have just left them in my box but I lost the key. Again. Hence all the mail that's probably jammed in there. Sorry. Thanks! ~Jennifer".

I actually considered using some kitchen tongs to try to fish out the envelopes myself, but since I'm pretty sure that's a felony I decided against it. Because ending up in front of a federal judge for a Christmas-card-related incident just kind of sounds like something that would happen to me.