I went to the post office today. Yes, this is how my story begins: I went to the post office….in order to send a recently published complimentary book to a friend.

As our saga continues….I walked inside and waited in line to have the mailer weighed and purchase the correct amount of postage.

Unbeknownst to me, I was about to make one of our poor postal employees very unhappy.

What was my mistake? I paid with a twenty even though the postage only cost three dollars!

Oh My God!!!! Why… I should be drawn and quartered!

The annoyed sounding worker said, “Don’t you have anything smaller?”

“I don’t,” I replied.

That was all he heard from me because (I happily confess) I felt zero obligation to apologize.

I realize in a world of ATM and credit cards, people do not see as much cash these days. But due to identify fraud, I use cash now more than ever. (I do keep an ATM card for emergencies and I use my credit card as little as possible simply because it always seems like a good idea to not use a credit card more often than is absolutely necessary.)

It’s not as if I handed the guy a hundred dollar bill! It wasn’t even a fifty! This was a twenty for crying out loud! And frankly, no matter what I had handed the poor, poor postman, you’ll pardon me if (with all the more important things going on in the world) I choose not to lose sleep over using LEGAL GOVERNMENT ISSUED TENDER at a government agency.

Now… I am sympathetic to the idea of people being inconvenienced. And so….if the U.S. Post Office really wants to go there, I am only too happy to oblige by sharing fond, tender, nostalgic memories of their stellar service over the years…

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