Ben Beagle

The aging, semi-hysterical retired reporter rides shotgun with the greatest station wagon driver of them all down the rocky road of life. Mondays and Wednesdays, steady as she goes.

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OK. Just when you're rushing to pay your drug insurance premium and the water bill on time, the U.S. Postal Service raises the first-class mail rate by 2 cents.

At this point, you have 20 39-cent stamps in the drawer that you hope will last awhile. And you have one severely lacerated 2-cent stamp in this drawer -- left over from another unexpected rise in postal rates.

What would a well-adjusted person do in this case? Pay the water bill or the insurance premium? Either way you're in trouble.

I personally would like to tear my clothes and pour ashes over my head. I reckon that would teach the postal service a thing or two. Instead, I buy 20 2-cent stamps, 20 41-cent stamps and hunker down for the next time the Postal Service raises the rates.

Listen. I don't care if I pay my cable bill on time just because I don't have a stamp of the proper value. Boy, I'm thinking of a time when we didn't have to pay cable bills and first-class stamps cost 3 cents.

And if you were in the Army, you could write your dear old mother a letter and just write "free" in the upper right corner of the envelope. And the kindly old mail carrier would come by -- he'd have to have been old or he'd have been drafted and sent to Italy -- and chat with your mother for a little while.

Hey, I'm on a roll now.

Those were the days when you glued the 3-cent stamp upside down on a letter to your main squeeze, and it meant: "I love you." I guess you could do the same thing now with a 41-cent stamp but it would only mean that your eyesight is going.

In addition, who at the power company is going to notice an upside down stamp?

Between the postal service and the power company increasing rates, some of us ought to think about joining the Army again.

Anyway, while Al Gore is worrying about global warming, I am concerned about the time in which it may cost my grandchildren $90.02 to send their mother a birthday card.

And whether they want it or not, I'm giving these kids a little advice: Don't be a borrower or a lender, and always keep a sheet of 2-cent stamps in the desk drawer.