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I HAVE TWO NIECES WHO are soon to have birthdays. Very soon. Today they are 8 and 11. By tomorrow, they will be aged 9 and 11. By Monday, they will be aged 9 and 12. By Tuesday, with any luck, they will be receiving the gifts I sent them. It's one of the most enjoyable things I've done in the past several days---wrapping the gifts, doing my own brand of artwork on the box.

Toting my package into the post office, I don't see Wanda, who's often at the counter doing her duties as mistress of the Post. Today it's Dale, who's the master.

"You got the stamps?" He knows they'll be no bland meter strip for my package. Besides, it's only additional stamps he's talking about. There are nine on the package already. He holds the box at arm's length. "Ya know, this is really somethin', I like to see this stuff you bring in." He says. Then, eyeing the stamps, "So how much you got on here?"

This time I thought I'd let the figuring up to him. I just hoped I hadn't gone over.
"Let's see, ya got three..one two three four...no, four forty-ones. That's a dollar sixty-four. Then ya got, uh, two thirty-niners. That's seventy-eight. Now...hmm...I'm gonna need paper." He fishes around for a scrap and scratches down his calculations. "Here's a thirty-four. And a thirty-seven...a thirty-three."


Finally he's totaled it up. He tells me the bottom line and I go away to the table to mull over my additions. Will it be more of the lovely flower stamps--with four varieties of pink? Or how about the thirty-seven-cent District of Columbia, so timely, and with great blending colors. I snitch a certified receipt label from the well-stocked cubbyhole in the table and do my own calculations. I'm still lacking fifteen cents' worth when I whisk my box back to the counter for stamps from Dale's drawer.

"Now you make certain they match my color scheme!" I tell him. But of course. He's pleased to be a consultant to my philatelic works. "I'd go with the teapot" he advises, after we've considered the Tiffany lamp and nixed the Navajo necklace for it's blueness. I buy three. Promising me he won't plaster on any labels, he carefully handstamps the whole thing. "They're sure to have it by Tuesday," he assures me as he pitches my masterpiece into the outgoing bin.

I leave with the thought that I've certainly gotten my postage worth from the USPS today!

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