A Christmas Story

[birdguy 3,943]

Here's another one of my boyhood stories.  When reading this you might think we were a poor family.  Well, we were kinda poor, but we didn't know it.

The Stamps

It was the first day of Christmas vacation.

We were sitting at the kitchen table where Mom was addressing the last of the Christmas Cards while Lee and I pasted Christmas Seals on the backs of the envelopes.

The family opened a Christmas Club account at the bank in January, and we had been putting a dollar a week into it.  The account had a fifty dollars in it.  This money would be spent on  gifts, a tree, decorations, and the rest of the Christmas trappings.

 Lee and I saved about a dollar apiece from our allowances, and Mom was going to give us each five dollars so we could buy gifts for all the relatives.
This was going to be a great Christmas!

Later that morning Mom took us to the bank and withdrew the Christmas Club money.  She gave Lee and I each a crisp new five dollar bill.

We walked to the post office a few blocks away where Mom was going to buy stamps for the Christmas Cards.  We stood next to her line anticipating the rest of the day, and dreaming of decorating the tree, shaking the gifts beneath it, and trying to guess what each one held.  

We were almost up to the window.  The man ahead of Mom asked the clerk for a roll of stamps.  Mom looked up. A roll of stamps?  She had always bought stamps by the sheet.  Twenty five stamps for seventy five cents.  She had never seen or heard of a roll of stamps.  This was something new.  
Mom was a sucker for every new product or gadget that made it's way to the market.  Our kitchen was full of them.  Every drawer in the house held some sort of gadget that was designed to make our lives easier, or at least more interesting.  Coin holders that organized pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars.  Several types of mechanical pencils.  A new kind of pen that held it's own ink and had a ball at the point instead of nib.  Special clips to hold down the pages of a book while you were reading it.  Interesting toys like the glass bird that periodically dips it's beak into a glass of water and the windmill in a glass ball that spins when you put in the sun.  Mom couldn't resist buying something new.

"A roll of threes," she told the postal clerk.  "That will be thirty dollars," he replied.

Dazed like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, Mom reached into her purse and handed the clerk a brand new ten and twenty dollar bill.  She took the rather small roll of stamps and put them in her purse.We went straight home.  Mom opened the front door and sat down on the couch without even taking off her coat.  She opened her purse and took out the remaining ten dollar bill.  She rummaged around, but could find no more money.

 "My God," she said, "What have I done?  That was all of our Christmas money!"

A tear welled up in her eye.  We knew something was terribly wrong.  She took out the roll of stamps and stared at them.  "Who would buy a thousand stamps?" she asked.  She twisted the little roll stamps around in her fingers and put them back in her purse.  "Can't you take them back?" I asked.
Mom was the kind of woman who hated to be wrong.  Bringing the stamps back to the post office would have been an embarrassment too difficult for her to endure.

"I want you and Lee to take them back for me," she said.

Lee and I dutifully took that roll of stamps back to the Post Office and presented them to the clerk at the window for a refund.  But he refused.  He didn't know where we had gotten them, he didn't believe our story about Mom having purchased them by mistake, and he wasn't about to place thirty dollars in the hands of a couple of runt towheads.

Our Christmas Spirit was slowly ebbing away.  As Lee and I trudged back home with saddened faces and slumped shoulders, we wondered aloud what kind of presents we would be getting from the church or the fire department.  We were thinking about what it felt like to be poor.

Dad was already home from work when we got back. He was sitting on the couch reading the paper.   Mom pointed to the back porch, so Lee and I followed her there.  When we told what  happened and gave her back the roll of stamps, tears came to her eyes.  We followed her back to the living room.  She looked at Dad and started to cry.

Between sobs she blurted out the story.  The family had one thousand three cent stamps, but no Christmas money.  What were we going to do?
Then Dad did what dads do.  He told her to give him the stamps and he would take care of it.  He would take the stamps to the office in the morning and the shop would buy them.   There was nothing to worry about.

The towhead runts and their Mom had been sitting on the couch in the living room when Dad came home from work the next evening.  They had been sitting there for almost an hour in worried anticipation.  Time passes slowly when you're not having fun.

Dad looked at us and smiled.  He held out three ten dollar bills.  Mom leapt from the couch and embraced him.  The room suddenly filled with happiness.  Christmas was on again!

Noel
 

Edited December 18, 2020 by birdguy

[n4gix 4,947]

Darn it all Noel! Your lovely story had me crying along with your mom in sympathy... 

I was not aware that they ever had a thousand stamp roll.

[Tim_Capps 474]

[W2DR 1,860]

On 12/19/2020 at 8:03 PM, n4gix said:

Darn it all Noel! Your lovely story had me crying along with your mom in sympathy... 

I was not aware that they ever had a thousand stamp roll.

My memory doesn't always work too well but, IIRC, back in those days the 1000 stamp coil, which was commonly used in stamp machines, was the largest of the 3-cent coils. I'm surprised, though, that some goofball at the window sold one over-the-counter unless specifically requested. Today, 10,000 stamp coils of recent stamps are available all over the web.

[birdguy 3,943]

The man in front of her bought a roll so she bought a roll too not realizing how many stamps were in the roll.

Noel

Edited December 23, 2020 by birdguy

[charliearon 3,024]

Knowing my mom, as well as I did, as soon as she would have heard $30, please, she would hand them back and say' "Sorry, my mistake"!  I'll take 10- 3 cent stamps, Please!  😄

[n4gix 4,947]

1 hour ago, W2DR said:

My memory doesn't always work too well but, IIRC, back in those days the 1000 stamp coil, which was commonly used in stamp machines, was the largest of the 3-cent coils. 

Ah, that makes sense. Like you though, I'm surprised that they were sold "over the counter." 

[birdguy 3,943]

I guess that makes my mom kinda dumb.  But that's the way she was.  Always quick to latch on the latest thing.  I guess never having heard of rolls of stamps before she just wanted to try them.  But it cost her 30.00.

But I can't tell you what went on in her mind, or my brother's mind, or my father's mind or in my firend's mind or in my teacher's minds in these stories I wrote.  You'll have to take them at face value...or not.

But they are all true.  I am not a liar.

Noel

Edited December 23, 2020 by birdguy

[n4gix 4,947]

Oh Noel, don't think for a moment that I have any doubt about your veracity!

The fact that I never heard of 1k roll of stamps means that I could just as easily make the same mistake. Lord knows that I've made more than my share of bone-headed decisions. 

However I do remember 3 cent stamps, 25 cent packs of cigarettes, and 19.9 cent/gallon gas!

[W2DR 1,860]

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

But they are all true.  I am not a liar.

I don't think any of us have ever thought otherwise Noel. The "stamp windows" in the post offices back then sold the both the100 stamp coils and the 1000 stamp coils. I can easily see how your mother, not knowing about the size(s) of stamp coils, would have no idea that they came any other way except in 1000 stamp lots if that's what the bozo at the window offered her. My mother was a postmaster for many years and I could write a book about her stories. Trust me, this ain't the worst thing that ever happened to a customer...🙂

[W2DR 1,860]

2 hours ago, n4gix said:

However I do remember 3 cent stamps, 25 cent packs of cigarettes, and 19.9 cent/gallon gas!

Fr. Bill, you and I are way too old 😄.  Remember the 10X Green Stamp offers with a fill-up?

[Greggy_D 936]

Thought I was experiencing some strange Deja Vu for a second.  Knew I read this before.

 

[n4gix 4,947]

When my dad passed and I flew down to Harlingen, Texas to empty his apartment at "Golden Palms" (retirement tower), I found much to my amusement that my mom had held onto her dozen Green Stamp folders as well as ten Top Value stamps. All absolutely worthless of course. 

[Fielder 3,678]

I think the postal clerk would have taken pity and refunded Noel and Lee if they were in bunny suits like Ralphie had to wear one time!

[HUSSAR 272]

Hi Noel,

Your story got me all choked up.  I've always felt that coming from humble beginnings makes for a better life later on.

Thanks for sharing.

Robert