This is the happy story I promised after the string of horror stories. It started on a day that did not look promising because I was doing an impromptu amateur-Uber run first thing in the morning - which is not that bad - but - jamming one more thing into an already busy schedule .... can be a recipe for disaster ... but I do some of my best thinking in the car ... and realize that I need to track down those winter bird stamps for a client, so I could actually stop at the main PO - and maybe get one errand done ahead of schedule.
Lucky me, only one person ahead of me in line. In the good old days, all the workers at the main PO were my best buddies and would wave the minute I walked in the door and provide all kinds of customer service. Now it's just a sea of strangers. Or in this case - a lone stranger. I walk up and ask if he has the winter bird stamps. He seems delighted as he says, "Why yes we do." He pulls out the book of stamps as though he is handling an 18K gold Audemars Piguet watch.
He presents it to me and I ask, "Are there 20-stamps in a book?"
Again - as though he is opening a $900,000 pocket watch - he opens the booklet and says, "Twelve on this side," and with a flourish, be turns it over and says with jewelry store level sales pitch, "and eight on this side."
Then he looks up at me with that salesman-smile of confidence that says -yes- he's going to make this sale. It took a lot for me to not just bust out laughing. Keep in mind, the main PO is one of the places where very angry people come in with big postal problems and I have been very scared. I've also see a counter person call for the large guy they keep in the back room who comes out and scares everyone. So this guy with buckets of care and concern for the sale of a book of stamps amazes me. I want to ask, "Where did you come from? Can you keep this up all day? Are you actually a performance artist?" It was refreshing - and certainly made me happy that I had been called out on an amateur-Uber call. I'm so tempted to go back to the main PO. But, I think I can keep myself reined in.
At first, I was not sure how to tell this story. It's so much easier to act it out - so that I can gesture appropriately. It was the way he pointed out how to find all the stamps that tickled my funny bone. But to act it out I would have needed to shoot a video. So, I had to think of something to compare it to and I know all my readers frequent the Audemars Piguet shops. Actually, I have never heard of that brand. I just Googled - most expensive Swiss watch. It popped up. Lists for $900,000. But is on sale for $861,743.31 (7% off) Do they really think that 7% is going to make a difference to anyone who is contemplating a watch in that price range?
Here is a 2018 October Exchange envelope. It's from Lynne. Gothic lettering is so perfect for October - love the stamp - and love the simple detail of the fine line with diamonds. At first I wasn't crazy about the double cancel - but in some ways the circle cancel goes with the labels on the bottles of poison across the bottom and the horizontal lines of the black cancel harmonize with the address lines.... so I ended up liking the combination of cancels.
P.S.
Something else to ponder.
I'm not going to *out* the person who wrote to me yesterday, sharing with me the excitement of finding some pumpkin stamps in their stash...but when the last line in the email was..."I know that I am a real stamp nerd" ... I thought ...no you aren't ....and then I thought - wait a minute ...maybe the guy at the post office knows the stamp nerds and he just layers on the customer service schtick for those of us who have an obsession with stamps. Maybe there is a bulletin board in the back where they have mugshots of us - and maybe during coffee breaks they share stories about us.
OK, I'll stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment