Stamping my feet for stamps

“Je voudrais les vrais timbres,” I said to the postal clerk as I handed over the large envelope filled with a letter, blog and proposal. I told her the other letters would be fine with the sticker that came out of the postal meter.
The clerk obviously has read the French woman’s fashion guide, the way her hair was bobbed and pulled back, the casual chemise and necklace. I could picture her walking down the street with a baguette and meeting Gerard Depardieu as the cameras rolled. She more or less ignored me.
The letter was for my ex-boss, who is serving two and a half decades for stealing $45 million, a mere pickpocket of a theft compared to Madoff, who languishes in his New York appointment. Yet my ex-boss sits in a jail for a time longer than he would have gotten for manslaughter. Not that I don’t think he deserved jail time as I often tell him, but half what he got. He cannot recommit a crime he created with a pencil.
Stamps are a treat for him. At one point I collected over 500 stamps from co-workers and sent those only to have the returned. Prisoners weren’t allowed to receive stamps except on envelopes.
I asked the clerk to see the big envelope. No stamps. Postal sticker.
“I asked for stamps,” I said.
She pursed her mouth as only the French do. I won the staring contest and she peeled off the sticker and placed it on top of a paper for later use.
“Do you have special stamps?” I asked.
“Not four Euro ones.” She showed me the four Euro one. Boring!
“What special ones do you have?”
A sigh shook the chair she was sitting on.
She thumbed through the book where nestled between each page are stamps of different denominations.
“Make up a combination, please.”
More sighs as she ruffled through the pages pulling out stamps, putting some back, but she finally found the right combination. “Sigh, ça va?”
“Merci mille fois.” I didn’t add, rude lady.