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I had to buy stamps today. No, I know, it isn’t very revolutionary for a lot of you. For me though? Let me explain…

I had to send out some letters recently and that was fine. I typed them up and printed them out. I have return address labels already so I just made up some labels for the senders and I was set. But fuck me! I needed envelopes!

I panicked for a second. Actually it was about an evening, where I asked some friends if they had envelopes. I was kinda coy at first, but then the desperation crept into my voice. After a while of asking and getting “I should have some, yeah,” type answers I remembered I had a box of 250 envelopes in the back of a closet. Score!

Except… I had no stamps.

No. I mean a lot of times when I send letters I take them to work. I use an envelope there and send it through our mailroom and pay them for the postage.

This all made me realize how strange I am with office supplies in my own living space. People will, not often, ask me for a paper clip while they’re here. I kinda freak out. I don’t have paper clips! I mean, I might have one somewhere, clipping some paper together, but spare paperclips? No way in hell. And I feel kinda anxious about this lack. Then I steal one off of a document I was using and hand it over, so as not to seem too deficient in the great paperclip war.

I have one pair of scissors. One. This is a major step up in my life, understand. I have a promotional stapler I got from the Office Space special edition, but I don’t know if it even really works. Hell, I’m not quite sure where I put it. Rubber bands? I have hair ties from when I had long hair, but actual rubber bands end up in the with problem that I face when someone asks me about paper clips. Don’t even ask if I have tape. I don’t, all right?

I realize that this all stems from when I grew up. My grandmother had a drawer in her kitchen with all sorts of shit in it. It had scissors and tape and rubber bands and paper clips and… office supplies galore. It was the go-to place in her house for all your office needs.

I always feel like I should have one of those. I feel like adults have office supplies just lying around their houses waiting to spring into action: binder clips and staplers and hole punches and twist ties and paper clips and tape and pens and pencils and pencil sharpeners and things I don’t even have names for. That’s what adults have.

Shit, I haven’t even owned a pencil in years and I don’t think I’ve had a pencil sharpener since seventh grade. I have a pen that I stole from a hotel like eight months ago and a second pen that lives in my pocket. It took me 30 years to learn that carrying a pen and a notebook in a pocket at all times is useful.

So yeah. Stamps. I had to buy stamps. So, uhhh, I did. And I have no clue how much a stamp is, in general. I mean I know it’s 39 cents US right now but that doesn’t mean I know it. So the Post Office was already closed. I needed to be able to charge my stamps, as I don’t carry cash. So I hit up a UPS store. I asked for a book of stamps and they gave me 20 and I thanked them and gave them the ten bucks they asked for.

Outside I did the math. 20 stamps at 39 cents a shot is $7.80 clean and cold. I just paid a surcharge for stamps. I mean come on people. I know I can be stupid but I just willingly overpaid for stamps.

Sometimes I wonder how I’ve survived this long.