About two weeks ago, the Postal Service implemented its annual and much-ballyhooed rate increase, kicking the price of a 39-cent stamp to 41 cents. Anticipating that a significant number of consumers (like yours truly) would still have a bunch of 39-cent stamps in their possession, the brilliant, benevolent, and very handsome people who work for the USPS have of course taken steps to ensure that two-cent stamps are readily available for those who need them. The automated vending kiosks will be overstocked with the needed “fill-in” stamps for the next month or so as a favor to valued customers whose schedules prevent them from visiting human postal workers during regular business hours. Thus, bills continue to get mailed on time, inconvenience is minimized, customer loyalty is maintained, everyone is happy, and spontaneous renditions of “Kumbaya” can be heard echoing through post offices across the land.

Well, that’s probably how it would work on the Bizarro World. Here on Earth, my local post master, in all his or her infinite wisdom, has devoted only a single slot of the vending machine to two-cent stamps, and that slot has, of course, been sold out for two weeks.

Idiots.