So, one of the things that we’ve been doing off and on is cleaning our basement. Mostly, just de-cluttering all the JUNK that has accumulated there over the past 5 years or so. So one of the things that I found was a package of 24 “aerogrammes”. I had these from my mission – the idea was that I could use them to send air mail letters home. But when I got down to the DR, I found that the church had a “pouch” system. How the pouch worked is that all the missionaries would send their letters into the mission office, and the mission office would ship them to Salt Lake. Once they got to SLC, they would just get dumped into the regular US mail. So, you just needed regular stamps, which is what I used.

So I’ve had these aerogrammes in my “stuff” for 10 years or so, just carting them around from place to place. So while cleaning, I decided to see if they could just be used as regular mail. They have 45 cent stamps embedded as part of the letter, so I figured with stamps going up to 41 cents, I could just use them in place of regular first class mail. I was going to send out a test one, but errands took me to the post office so I brought them in. Turns out, along with the recent uppage of first class stamps from 39 to 41 cents, Aerogrammes were eliminated. So I was just kind of figuring I was out of luck, when the lady told me that they could be exchanged for regular 41 cent stamps. Who knew we had $11 just sitting around….

I know, you are probably amazed. I mean, the Post Office actually NOT sucking for once?!?! It just boggles the mind! I mean when I think of the Post Office, I usually think of the insanely late times I get my mail delivered (5:30 p.m. yesterday), or maybe it’s the times when they give me my mail back all crumpled and deformed with a “Ooh suerie about that” note (cough, cough the $18 cashier’s check for my daughter’s birth certificate) Okay maybe that’s a little harsh – the Post Office does have some good qualities. I mean if I gave you 41 cents, would you take a letter across country?

In other news, we have been listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on audio book for awhile now. So Carolyn got an email saying that it was due, and when she went to renew it, she couldn’t because there were “holds” on it. Which makes sense. Except for I then went online to the catalog and found that there were 17 available copies (and only 8 holds). So I called the local branch but there was nothing they could do. So I had to go in to the library, give them back the copy we had checked out, and CHECK OUT A DIFFERENT COPY OF THE EXACT SAME AUDIOBOOK!!! Madness….