buying stamps

When I wrote about getting the Christmas cards done, I sensed that it wasn’t the end of the story because I had not yet bought the stamps. I wasn’t exactly sure how much postage was required because, you know, in the US if you have a heavier than normal letter, it will cost you a few more pennies so you don’t feel too bad about adding a few of those 2 or 3 cent stamps that are leftover from the last postal rate increase. But in France, if the letter is a hair overweight, it costs double.

Here beginneth the 4 attempts at buying stamps.

Attempt #1
I left for my 1:00 French class about an hour and a half early and walked to the nearest post office. I should have known better than to arrive there during the lunch period because (naturellement) they were closed. So I headed toward my school hoping that another La Poste would be open by the time I got there. And surprisingly, it was. This other post office kept different hours (go figure) and when I arrived with about 45 minutes to spare, the line was unbelievably long. I counted postal-heads and counted customer-heads and did the math after determining the average time per customer. Needless to say, I left without stamps. I asked my French teacher if there was an easier way... see Attempt 2.

Attempt #2
My teacher told me of the machines along the walls of the post office… “Don’t you have those in the states?’’ she said... “bof (whatever)”, I thought... OK… I’ll do that. So I went to the post office again with the big stack of cards and stood in front of the machine. All I could do was stare at a full screen with lots of *tiny* French words. I had no idea what to do ... or how to begin. Again, I left without stamps.

Attempt #3
As I was mulling over the problem, Paul suggested that we order stamps from the internet. C'est une bonne idée! So we ordered them one day, early in the week. By Friday I was nervous because they had not arrived. On Saturday morning I checked the mail around 10am. Nothing. At 11am Paul checked and found a “DELIVERY ATTEMPTED” notice in the box. Attempted delivery??? What attempt? It should have been a “DIDN’T FEEL LIKE DELIVERING” notice because we were certainly home! Paul said the postal guy was still downstairs filling the boxes so I sent him to chase down the stamps. The guy said (basically), “Not my job”. It was a different postal guy who delivers the stamps and he is gone. OK... again... no stamps.

Attempt #4
Paul stood in line on Monday with notice in hand and picked up the stamps. He is much more patient than I am. It’s a good thing I don’t speak French very well because I would have liked to tell them what a crappy delivery person they have.

So is this the end of the story? I sure hope so... I hope I don’t find those cards back in my mailbox.