Stamps
Marissa sat behind the wheel of her car, idling in a parking space outside the post office. She nodded to old Mrs. Foster as the latter was walking towards the building's front door; then she bolted up in her seat as the front door flew open and a small form barrelled down the sidewalk, nearly plowing into the woman. Pete stopped just long enough to apologize before speeding up again. He was breathless and giggling by the time he had gotten into the passenger seat of Marissa's car.
"Peter," she said sternly, "What have I told you about being more careful? You could have hurt Mrs. Foster badly!"
Pete squirmed a bit, looking down at his dirty sneakers. "Sorry mom," he mumbled.
"Now, did you get the stamps? Let me have them." She held out her hand, then raised an eyebrow as her son giggled again. "...Pete..."
"Um," Pete said, and grinned. His right hand had been in his jacket pocket the whole time; now he removed it, revealing a fistful of something, which he gave her. "Here you go!" he added brightly, and then continued laughing.
Marissa stared bemusedly at the mass of stamps in her hand. She had given him three dollar bills, and asked him to buy as many stamps as he could out of the machine; apparently it would have been helpful to specify what kind she actually wanted.
Then she would not have wound up with three hundred one-cent stamps, all crumpled together in a vague coil by a giggling eight-year-old.
"That was fun," Pete exclaimed. "I wanna buy stamps again sometime!"
Um, hey, Brookins and/or Boggess. They still sell those. I've got a small pile of lickable one-centers on the shelf by my desk right now, purchased maybe a month ago from a vending machine at the post office. They have lampshades on them.
Just because a way of doing something is old does not mean that it is not still in use, even in today's crazy modern world.
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