The other day, my roommate borrowed a couple of stamps from me, leaving me with two. And I remember thinking, "wow, this will be the first time I ever went through an entire booklet of stamps without a rate increase".

Wouldn't you know it, I missed the 2 cent rate increase last month and one of her letters got sent back due to insufficient postage.

For the last several years, I've only been mailing one bill a month, everything else being paid on-line. Buying a 20 stamps at a time is just an exercise in wishful thinking for me. I really should know better.

"I remember when stamps cost just two buttons and a stick of gum!"

I have a penpal. When we started writing one another stamps were only 25 cents. I mentioned this to her the other day and she got mad at me for making her feel old.

Do you mean that you used an old stamp last month after using the new ones for the last year?

Because the last increase was in January 2006. The next increase goes into effect May 2007.

Perhaps that post lay there quietly pending for a year.

I'm not admitting what stamps were back when I started writing to my penpal.

I remember using stamps

These days, when I want to mail a letter (usually only Christmas cards and stuff like that), I just take them down to the post office when I need to ship a CD or artwork and just pay for the whole thing, letting the clerk put on all the stamps.

Yeah, I abuse counter personell. I'm mad like that.

I missed it last year... I've been mailing things off insufficient postage with zero trouble for over a year? How the hell did that happen?

Yeah i don't know what the heck you are talking about dude. there hasn't been a stamp increase in a long time

However, for you-the forever stamp:

The Postal Service's governing board wans to issue a "forever" stamp _ and seeking an increase of 3 cents in the first-class rate to 42 cents-_ probably to take effect in the spring of 2007. The forever stamp would would sell for the first class rate of 42 cents and, once purchased, the special stamp would remain valid for whatever the first-class rate is when it is used, regardless of future increases.

I'm completely baffled how I went over a year without noticing a post office increase. I was mailing stuff off every month and nothing came back to me. I've even mailed off a couple of things in the last couple of weeks that did not get sent back.

They give a lengthy grace period. Perhaps it's a year!