The Stamp Store

I probably did the dorkiest thing imaginable this past Friday. I went to a stamp store. While most people today seem to do most things online including emailing their friends or messaging them via Facebook, some of my relatives aren't quite tech savvy and prefer old school handwritten letters opposed to navigating through the online world. It doesn't matter a whole lot to me because I enjoy writing out a letter every now and then, especially now that I'm out of school and don't have to take notes which I always did in a notebook rather than on my laptop anyway. There is something more personal about seeing my own handwriting on a piece of paper no matter how messy it is.

In addition, I get excited when I get mail. Perhaps it's because I receive letters and packages via mail much more infrequently than I receive emails and texts. I like being able to hold something in my own hands. I like seeing my full name and address written on the envelope, and I love the cute return address labels that my Grandma always uses featuring a kitty or puppy. It makes it seem realer and gives it more personality.

Therefore, when a friend said she was going to the stamp store (she enjoys writing letters as well), I told her that I'd love to join. The stamp store we visited is called Champion Stamp, and it's a shop literally filled with stamps--world stamps, stamps from different years, stamps with different amounts, stamps in many different colors, shapes and sizes. It was pretty neat to be in a store dedicated to stamps only. Some people collect stamps as a hobby, and there were a few glass cases in Champion Stamp where the expensive collector stamps were held.

Since I actually want to use the stamps, I bought face value stamps only. There were dozens of bins and binders full of stamps. I sat at a table and sorted through them. It felt like a treasure hunt the way I was digging around for the perfect stamps. I loved the variety and the fact that I myself was able to go through the binders rather than have someone else show me the options or buy them in a vending machine at the post office. Applying the stamps that I spent time digging through to the envelopes containing my handwritten letters makes it all the more personal in my opinion. Whether or not the receiver of the letter notices, I feel satisfaction towards the letter to be mailed.

When was the last time you wrote a handwritten letter? Perhaps being able to choose your own stamps to apply to a letter would be an incentive to write more. Feeling like a kid again if only for a few minutes as I was digging through the bins of stamps made the visit worth it to me.

Sometimes it's the small things in life :)