Yes, November is Gratitude Month and before it is over, we will also have celebrated Thanksgiving in the USofA. (I wonder… In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated in October. Is October Gratitude Month up there? C’mon, Canadian readers, fill me in!) To be honest, Thanksgiving and Gratitude Month in any country are not what I was thinking when I typed in that title. I was thinking more along the lines of letters. No, not A B C letters. Correspondence letters.
I was just at the post office buying stamps, stamps that have gone up in price again since the last time I bought them. (I go back to 5 cent first class postage, 4 for second class. Do we still have second class postage?) (Anyway…) As I was swiping my debit card through the card swiper I was thinking to myself for as often as the price has gone up, what a bargain postage still is. For 66 cents you can send a letter or card up to one ounce anywhere in the country. (For the curious, 4 sheets of paper + envelope is about an ounce.) For $1.50 you can send that same card or letter (or one very similar) to 130 different countries, as close as Canada (remember than next October if you want to wish a Canadian friend Happy Thanksgiving), or as far away as Australia (the Australian territory of Norfolk Island celebrates Thanksgiving the last Thursday of November so you better and get your card to the post office now since it will take 2 to 3 weeks to get there). (I said it was a bargain, not a rush.)
I still write cards and letters, and not just at Christmas. There is something wonderfully personal about getting a greeting in the mail among all the sales flyers and invitations to open a new credit card. (But as much as you will hear me complain about spam email and text messages, I will never disparage junk mail. Those bulk mailers are spending a lot of money on postage and keep our postal expenditures manageable.) If you want to really say thank you to a friend for nothing more than just being a friend, you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more delightful way to do so than with a card or a hand written letter. Hand printed works too.
That’s all I got for now. No, one more thing. As I was resetting clocks over the weekend I realized how, even in this day of everything being connected (and/or “smart”), how many clocks I have that still need set by hand. And I still haven’t gotten to the cars. How about you?
Okay, so now get out and send your best friend a thank you card for putting up with you. Heaven knows they likely deserve one!
Speaking of best friends, deep friendships exist to remind each other that people are lovable without having to perform for it. But not without having to work for it. Read what we have to say about the work it takes to love somebody in the most recent Uplift! Love’s Struggles. (Approximate reading time – 4 minutes. That’s not so bad.)
The Real Reality Show Blog 
You ask: Do we still have second class postage? I don’t know the answer to that but just the other day was wondering if we still have “book class” postage. I could research each question but rather like being in the dark about these questions… and yes that was a pun about changing our clocks.
I can say for sure we still have book rate postage. I just used it not too many weeks ago. It’s a bargain. It’s also very slow. I’m pretty sure book rate means all the people who come in contact with it in this way to it’s destination are allowed to stop and read it. Or maybe even expected to! Thanks for the comment. And for the pun. (I’m usually a bit behind picking those up! 😉)
Hubster Paul and I had that chat yesterday – about the clocks that “do their own thing” vs. those that we need to reset. I was annoyed because the atomic-like auto-clocks were slow to display the correct time. I don’t care about Greenwich time or whatever…I prefer adjusting on my own and it turns out our house has an equal number of “self-sufficient” clocks and old-fashioned versions. I like the old ones. And gah! I forgot about the car! 😜
Those car clocks will get you. One of mine has a “DST” setting which I assumed meant if it was on, it would magically know when to adjust itself to confirm to local prevailing time. Nope. When it’s on, it sets the clock ahead an hour. When it’s off, it sets it back. The problem is, to change the hour “manually” requires one to tap the computer looking display in the middle of the dashboard 4 times twice a year. To have the clock do it “automatically” requires 4 taps twice a year. Hmm.
OMG…tap, tap, tap. And how is that “automatic” if you need to nudge it four times in succession? Hilarious. I’m getting Hokey Pokey dance vibes…and turn yourself around! LOL! 🤣
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LOL! 🥰😁🥰
Oh, good golly gee whiz, I love receiving letters or cards in the mail! There’s something special about someone taking the time to write, print, or type (my mode of expressive writing since my handwriting is quite illegible–or so I’ve been told by many) a particular missive to a particular friend for no other reason than being a friend. And the cars changing their clocks? I wish to heaven they’d do it on their own. I have to keep looking in the manual–it’s the only think I ever look for in a car manual. And I usually forget what I found it under, because it’s rarely under clocks!
Oh my gosh, I am literally laughing out loud at the thought of you hunting through the owners’ manual looking for the clock resetting directions that’s not under “clock.” And it’s true! Oh I needed a good midafternoon laugh. Thank you!
Oh and it’s also true that there is something special about a personal letter. Even one that’s typed.
You’re my kind of guy, my friend.
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66 cents? That price has been obscured to me because of the “forever” stamps. Now that was a great invention. Remember when the price would go up and then you’d have to do the stamp plus a 2 cent stamp alongside it?
Love getting real mail – you’re right – such a treat! As is this post, Michael!
Thank you Wynne! Feel free to consider this a letter for you and I always consider such a kind comment an extra treat!
I do remember those days of “assembling” the right postage. I’m sure I still have some one and two cent stamps buried some where in my desk.