
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991                   TAG: 9102090013
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WELL, THIS TIME AROUND I CAN ADD MY FOUR-CENTS WORTH

I am now trying to forget the heartbreak those four-cent stamps that you stick on with your 25-cent stamps to mail the next payment on the Christmas bills brought us.

We are modern people. We order stamps from the post office - by mail, of course, you dummy - and they usually come quickly.

We were stuck with a frightening number of 25-cent stamps, but we weren't afraid.

We ordered the correct number of four-cent stamps to make our 25-cent stamps operative, as they might say at one of those military briefings.

Let me say here that there has been no criticism around our house of the postal service and its four-cent increase for first-class mail.

We are not that kind of Americans. We used to know that thing about sleet nor fog nor gloom of night by heart. Honest.

Nobody mentioned how simple and nice it was back when a three-cent stamp was first-class postage. And we didn't blame anybody for our over-buying on 25-cent stamps.

I didn't say to the greatest station wagon driver of them all: "Another fine fix you've gotten us into. Ordering all those 25-cent stamps. Don't you ever read the paper, you aging bimbo, you?"

I didn't say that because: (A) I am a sensitive, caring husband who goes the last mile in domestic situations.

(B) I want to live long enough to get back some of that money I've paid into Social Security.

But, things began to fall apart when the courier on his appointed rounds didn't leave any four-cent stamps.

"What are we going to do?" the driver asked, near hysteria. "Our daughter's birthday is day after tomorrow and we don't have the right postage for the card."

"Tut, my little magnolia blossom," I said. "Never fear. The courier will leave the stamps on his next appointed round."

The next afternoon, it was obvious the driver was a broken woman.

"No stamps on the appointed round?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I went to the post office, but there was no place to park and then I just panicked."

"I hope you didn't put on a sandwich board and demonstrate in front of the post office," I said. "That sort of behavior ill becomes a former Shawsville Shawnee."

"I'd just had enough," she said. "I put two 25-cent stamps on the card and mailed it."

It was sad. Former Shawsville Shawnees don't like to lose.

In all fairness, we would have to say that if there is winner here, it is the postal service.

Enough of those 50-cent birthday cards and you can say goodbye to your deficit.

by CNB