Coolness is being ruined by the machine

So I went to mail a few ‘holiday’ cards today.

First of all, why can’t I say Christmas cards anymore? All this politically correct shit has got to stop… anyway, me being the forward thinking, always have to have the cool shit kinda guy that I am, I find these cool little square Christmas cards that are about 4” X 4”. I also had a few that were regular grocery store sized cards.

As I go to buy stamps for my various sized cards, the post office woman informs me that my cool little 4x4 cards will require an additional 12 cents, thus costing 49 cents instead of the standard 37 cents. I couldn’t believe it! I said, these are half the size and half the weight of these other cards so how can it cost me 12 cents MORE???

She says, “those won’t go through the machine, so they’ll have to be stamped by hand. Therefore, they cost more to send.”

This really pissed me off for so many reasons. As more and more people discover that if you decide to deviate from the ‘norm’ than you shall be punished financially is a terrible, terrible way to have anything in this world operate. It speaks to the warnings in ‘1984’ of the machine age and the monotony that would proliferate society ending in people not even having names, only numbers… no personalities at all, at the very extreme in, not even a persons gender would matter.

On an unrelated note, did you know another new Tupac album came out today??? Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. Once he becomes completely irrelevant, THAT is when he will return from the ‘dead’.

Something as small as trying to send an innovative shaped card is a big deal. People are very used to receiving the ‘normal shaped’ cards on any number of Hallmark’s numerous created holidays. However, the odd shaped card, with a personal note inside means so much more for so many reasons today, especially because people know that you took the effort to find this particular shape and write something inside…

But that’s not all. NOW, since I have to add an additional 12 cents to each card, that means that I have to add an additional stamp on the front of a card that has no room for an additional stamp. And to make things even worse, there is no 12 cent stamp, so she had me purchase a 10 cent stamp and a 2 cent stamp in addition to the 37 cent stamp that would go on each card!!! I’m looking at her as she’s doing this and I’m looking at my little 4 x 4 cards thinking…. “don’t you see there isn’t room for all these stamps on the front of this card woman??!!!”

I’m looking at her thinking to myself, are you serious??? So now, my whole idea of having these cool little cards with a single cool stamp in the corner is ruined by this haberdash of stamp styles and colors and sizes that clearly don’t look like they belong, clearly are way too many stamps to have on the front of this card, and clearly make me look like a damn idiot for trying to cram 3 stamps onto the front of this tiny ass envelope!!!

Would it be so naïve to think that people that will receive this card from me will have the foresight to look at this, see half of my return address covered in stamps and think to themselves, “Hmm, Curtis clearly did not intend on having to place 3 odd shaped stamps on the front of this envelope when he decided to buy these” OR will they think (most likely) “Why in the fuck does Curtis have so many damn stamps on the front of this tiny ass envelope???!!!”

It’s not my fault man…. It’s not my fault.

~C

CD of the moment: Plant Life - "Return of Jack Splash"