MAY 22, 2021 – Yesterday, I heard a report that cash is becoming obsolete. Not surprisingly, the pandemic accelerated the trend. The report mentioned that many retail businesses already don’t accept . . . cash.
I wondered about the illicit gun and drug business, not to mention “cash” in exchange for that handyman working out of the back of his pick-up truck. Will cash be the means of exchange only in instances of law-breaking transactions? I suppose this probability argues for cryptocurrency in one’s retirement savings portfolio.
Next come denominated postage stamps. Actually, not “next.” Long ago, they went the way of the rotary phone.
Yesterday, I had to send a couple of documents by Pony Express (“P.E.”). On my wife’s office scale, I weighed the envelope with contents: 1.1 oz. A quick look online revealed that the required postage would be an additional 20 cents over the one-ounce rate. I immediately recalled my dad grousing when P.E. raised rates from four cents to five cents for a one-ounce letter. “Imagine that!” he said (on January 7, 1963).
In a top drawer of the oak cabinet that came from my wife’s grandfather’s hardware store, we store a book of “forever” stamps for our occasional mailing needs. Also folded into the drawer are odd sets of ancient, “lick ’em” stamps of random (obsolete) denominations. I dug and sifted and found a bunch of old state flag stamps at 15 cents a-piece. Below them were Olympic ski event stamps at 13 cents each. My advanced math skills revealed that the way to go would be two “flag” stamps, putting me at six cents over the 20 cents “surcharge” for mailing that weighed 1.1 ounces.
I dug deeper—I was damned if P.E. was going to get a six-cent windfall for that extra 0.1 ounce. Soon I claimed victory in a square of three-centers. Two plus an Olympic ski-jumper would put me at 21 cents, a savings of five cents. P.E. would be only a penny in the black. Ha, ha!
I examined the three-centers more carefully. They featured a ballot box and the inscription, TO CAST A FREE BALLOT. A ROOT OF DEMOCRACY. Not exactly a Republican stamp, I thought.
After crowding the top of the envelope with the “forever” stamp (a rose), the ski-jumper, and the two ballot boxes, I handed the whole shootin’ match over to P.E.
Curious about the ballot box stamp, I looked it up. It was issued in 1977, the year after I’d graduated from college. But then came the kicker. On Etsy, you can buy a set of 10 for . . . drum roll, drum roll . . . $3.00, shipping, ironically free. Higher math kicked into high gear. Stuck irretrievably to that envelope was 60—not six—cents’ worth of “ballot boxes.” It appeared that P.E. had the last laugh. I’d been a cheapskate at my own expense. Rather than limiting P.E. to a one-cent windfall, I’d left 53 cents on the table—er, envelope.
Call it being penny wise and stamp foolish, as the pony wins the race.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
