Anyway, Garrett and I had a cool last-minute idea to seal the back of the envelopes with wax - you know, like in the "olden days". Garrett hand-carved a cool "M" stamp and we bought some special sealing wax in an awesome green color. We were both totally stoked because we're into that stuff and whatnot.
So we sit down to begin the addressing-stuffing-adhering-stamping-sealing process when I realized a potential problem - what if the wax makes the envelopes too heavy/bulky for the traditional "forever" stamp? I obviously didn't want to risk going through the entire process only to find out I needed three more cents of postage on each one, so we made up a "sample" to take to the post office the next day.
On my lunch break that following day, I skipped to the post office (not really) and told the post office worker that I was about to be sending out a bajillion of the pretty wax-sealed envelopes. I asked him to weigh it and check the size for me to see if one stamp would cover it. So he weighed it - no issue there - then he slid it through the sizer thingumabob - no problem there, either. I subsequently purchased about five sheets of the cute "love" stamps and went on my merry way!
A few days later, I returned to the same post office but was met with a different employee as I proceeded to send off about 50 completed envelopes. I asked him to weigh and size a few, just to be on the safe side, and once again was told that they were completely fine.
About a week after that, I once again visited the post office to mail about 50 more little beauties. The postal worker, a woman this time, weighed 'em and sized 'em and gave me the thumbs up. I was glad to be getting the invitations crossed off my list!
Well, two days later my grandma called and told me some not-so-fortunate news: a family friend had received their invitation with a stamp on it that said "20 cents postage DUE"....
EMBARRASSING
I was really caught offguard because how could that have happened? I'd taken all the precautionary measures and was told THREE TIMES that there would be no issues! None! Frustrated, I took the next batch of about 40 invitations to a different post office yesterday. I told the woman my predicament, and asked her why only one invitation out of over 100 had "postage due", and all she said was, "well, it depends on the delivery person."
What?
What do you mean it "depends"? Aren't you a business? Aren't you supposed to have these things pretty set in stone? I mean, either it costs 42 cents or it costs 62 cents, right? Not sometimes one or the other. Of course I didn't say those things, but seriously??
So my choices were to:
a) take the risk and send off another bundle of envelopes that may or may not be stamped with the dreaded "postage due" warning, DEPENDING on the postal worker...
or b) pay another thirty bucks to buy 20 cent stamps for the remaining invitations to cover my butt
Awesome!
I immediately called my dad for his advice and he said it'd be safer to cover my bases and get the dumb stamps. Not that anyone would really care about the 20 cents due issue, but it is pretty embarrassing. Plus, in the scheme of wedding planning, an extra $30 really wasn't something to pull my hair out about.
So I returned to the counter and told the woman I'd go ahead and buy the COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY stamps. She proceeded to pull some sheets of the 20 cent-ers out of her drawer with the face of our very own President George Washington on them and I couldn't help but say, "and I'm assuming those are the only 20 cent stamps you carry?"
Yes, yes they are.
So now my cute little invitations with the pretty green wax "M" on the back, the calligraphy addresses in lovely silver ink, and the relevant "LOVE" forever stamps are now tarnished with the pasty old man skin of Mr. Washington.
These things, I tell ya.
And people wonder why the post office is losing money. It's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe after you going up there three times and everything being fine some bitter worker put a postage due. TBH They should send it back to you and not them you know? There should be some standards here!