The only penny stamps at the post office on Friday were in the coin vending machine in the lobby. There still weren’t any for sale at the counter.
And you can’t buy more than 10 at a time from the vending machine, which is more than a bit inconvenient. But I just kept feeding it 10 cents worth of coins until I got the 50 I needed.
Interestingly, though I was the third person in line at the vending machine at about 3:30 p.m., I was not the angriest. The two people ahead of me were really upset. One woman said: "If the post office thinks I’m driving around town with $4 gas to buy penny stamps, they’re crazy."
And to the commenter who asked if I had contacted my congressman: Yes, several times over the years regarding various postal service screw-ups (including the time a carrier was caught putting mail in a dumpster). The office liaison gets someone to call me from customer service at the post office, who seems shocked — shocked — that everything is not 100 percent terrific. Someone from the station will call me, I’m told, and no one ever does. And nothing ever changes.
