Liberal flinch: It could happen to you!

[muckefuck]

I bought stamps the other day. There's a "postal store" right across the street from my PCP's office and I had a few minutes, so I popped in to get some first-class stamps. I could easily have used the vending machine to purchase a book, but (a) I hate the handfuls of change it gives out and (b) they tend to offer only one or two boring designs. Besides, the line was very short, so I figured I might as well see what cool commerative stamps were available. On a previous trip, I'd gotten a sheet of "snakes and things" (in the words of the employee who dispensed them). There's something trivially satisfying about affixing a gila monster stamp to your mortgage payment.

Either the black woman at the counter misunderstood me when I said, "I'd like to buy some first-class stamps. What designs do you have?" or she couldn't be bothered. In any case, she simply reached behind her, grabbed a sheet, and said, "$7.40". All I could tell about the design was that it featured an African-American mother in sort of a madonna-and-child pose with a diapered baby. I wanted to say, "What else have you got?" but I stopped myself. What would the woman think? That black people weren't good enough to be on my stamps? So I just bought the sheet and left.

They aren't bad stamps, but they sure the hell ain't as cool as snakes and lizards and other things that go bump in the night. On the other hand, I suppose it's high time my utilities and credit card companies had their consciousness raised about sickle cell anemia.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Ah have mag-no-lee-uh flowuhs on mah stamps.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ah dunno ah kin git em up heah in the haht o' Yankeedom.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I could easily have used the vending machine to purchase a book, but (a) I hate the handfuls of change it gives out

Hey, it's the only place for me to get Sacagawea dollars. (I'm still wishing for a viable dollar coin, though clearly it's not going to happen until/unless we decide to simultaneously eliminate the bill a la Canada. But I still curse every time I get into a push-me/pull-you game with a vending machine bill acceptor.)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I will tell anyone who will slow down long enough to listen that I think we should go to a dollar coin. You are apparently the only person who agrees with me.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to suspect it will never happen, though-- that bill acceptors will improve, transactions will be increasingly likely to be electronic (I could also evade the bill acceptor tug-of-war at work by putting money on my ID) and inertia is a powerful force. (And not a wholly irrational one-- reluctance to mess with the main reference currency on the planet isn't unreasonable, though no one outside the US really cares what happens with our coinage.) I'd guess that we're not going to get rid of the dollar bill for the same reason that we aren't going to get rid of the penny, though doing both would put us in more or less the same situation in terms of coins and bills as existed the year I was born. (The dollar was worth roughly $5 today, and the penny was likewise worth about a modern nickel. A dollar coin would be worth a bit less than a then-quarter.)

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Hey, another fan of the Minnie Driver dollar?

[alfaboy.livejournal.com]

Sacagawea dollars... i think the damn things were created for the sole purpose of giving little old ladies something shiny to hand out to children and therby make themselves less scary-seeming.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

Ah, but even here, they betray you. Instead of Sacagawea dollars, more often than not, the vending machines dispense Susan B. Anthony dollars or a mix of the two, easily the worst U.S. coin of the 20th century.

Even banks do it. Before Christmas, I went to BankOne to get some rolls of Sacagaweas. Instead of tipping my low-paid TKD instructors with paper money, I thought I'd give them bags of the "gold"-colored coins. Dorky yes, but at least it's different. But no, the rolls actually contained 2/3 SBA coins and the plan was spoiled.

The Treasury should have bit the bullet and melted those disasters down decades ago.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Hey, GOP, what do you think about this colour scheme? Don't tell me you haven't been dreaming of a mauve accent wall!

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Cool! Snakes&things are cool! I'm still working through the book of "Antique Toy Cars" stamps that I found on the sidewalk one day up at NU.

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Dude, you should have picked up some Buckmaster Fuller stamps. The top of his head is a geodesic dome. It's the coolest stamp evar.

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

Dude, Buck Master Fuller in the house.
Also, DON'T FORGET STAMPS.COM

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

jus coz U R wilz beyach dont mean I won smak U up

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

Be careful or I will unleash faeriecat upon you.

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

They need Benoit Masterbrot stamps to go with that series.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Dude, don't forget that you can just buy stamps online. Even if you don't actually buy them that way, you can prepare yourself for dealing with the counter clerk by boning up on currently available stamps.

Bonus: you can avoid offending blacks AND be gayer than evar before by saying something like "Do you have any of those hawt James Baldwin stamps?" when you get to the counter.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The hell is this world coming to when I have to do ONLINE RESEARCH before going to the post office to buy STAMPS for cryin out loud?

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, another person feels my paaaain.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I'll feel your ... oh, wait. That's not your pain.

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

That's my snowy eaglet.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Hell, as it turns out, I didn't even have to buy stamps today. I found 12 LOVE stamps on the ground coming back from the teriyaki place where I normally get my lunch. Talk about weird, eh?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

LoVE stamps? Ya big hippy. Big suspender-wearing lumberjack hippy at that!

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Would you like to buy a flower?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Does it come with a side helping of free love?

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Only in Oregon, alas.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Damn bluenose Midwestern regulations!

What does it come with in California?

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Malathion.

[spookyfruit.livejournal.com]

WELL I LIVE WITH SNAKES AND LIZARDS AND OTHER THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT COS TO ME EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN I'VE GIVEN UP HIDING AND STARTED TO FI-IGHT

-sf-