Of all the weeks for the United States Post Office to screw with my handcrafted cards, this was an infuriating doozy for which I am sorry to say was so frustrating that I lost sleep over it. A lot of sleep.
Why? Because I don’t trust the USPS as it is to follow the US Constitution these days when it comes to mailed ballots for the upcoming election. Hence, I was wary of any confrontation in which I was fuming and they were clueless, which is why I went prepared for battle on Monday morning.
Their monumentally careless mistake landed in my mailbox on Saturday morning, which coincidentally was the first day of early in-person voting at my county fairgrounds (not to mention NO KINGS – VOTE EARLY DAY). But I didn’t discover it until I went to my mailbox on Sunday morning—of course—when I could do nothing but fume about it until Monday morning.
In my mailbox were eight of my handcrafted Halloween cards, mailed last Tuesday but returned for postage due, plus one that was supposed to go out in Saturday’s mail but the postman instead left it in the mailbox with the returned ones. He didn’t know they were in the wrong, because as I learned later, carriers aren’t trained to know specific postage rates of stamps, and he was trying to help me not end up with yet another returned card. But on Sunday my head practically exploded at roughly ten dollars worth of postage obliterated by idiocy.
Why? Because, as a prolific paper crafter, I’m well aware of what types of cards need extra postage. Some, in regular-sized envelopes, might require an extra-ounce stamp added to the first class postage if they have embellishments that are too bumpy. That stamp, which costs 29 cents, previously featured a cute bunny rabbit, though now it’s a ho-hum school bus.
But that’s not the stamp my Roswell-alien-themed Halloween cards in 6 x 6 inch square envelopes needed, and I knew that because this isn’t my first postage stamp rodeo. For square, rigid, or uniquely shaped envelopes (exact wording on the USPS website) what’s called a NON-MACHINABLE SURCHAGE is required, which costs extra at $1.31 per stamp.
That amount covers the cost of first class postage plus the surcharge for processing mail of up to 1 ounce that cannot be handled by standard machines (also language from the USPS website). Additionally, this stamp is always valid even if the postal rate increases, which was not even at play in terms of this situation—nor a possible flimsy excuse for a postal clerk’s inexcusable error that turned out to be quite personal for me.
Why? Because the NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE stamp happens to depict a Luna moth. I blogged about it in March of this year to commemorate the fifth anniversary of this Luna Moth Woman blog. It’s only the second time the Luna moth has been featured on postage; the first time was back in June of 1987 on a first class stamp. That stamp is actually mentioned in Alienable Rights, my first Other Worldly novel of which a second edition is coming in 2027.
This time around a Luna moth appears on the NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE stamp, replacing a purple butterfly stamp when it was issued on August 16, 2025. As in more than a year ago. That’s how long I’ve been using this particular stamp for cards in square envelopes, including multiple autumn-equinox-themed cards mailed recently in September with no problem.
Therefore, this hapless postal clerk also could not claim ignorance based on this stamp only being in recent circulation. And it’s also not my fault that the USPS didn’t see fit to make this stamp a larger size than first class postage, which they had done with the previous butterfly version. But they did put the words NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE directly on it, despite it not depicting the cost of postage (because it’s a “forever” stamp).
What is it about the words NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE did an actual postal clerk, supposedly trained to know such things, not comprehend? Because surcharge literally means I already paid the extra postage.
Hence on Monday morning just after 8 a.m., I drove to my local post office, which at least is nearby and the clerks are nice. Yet I still had to completely explain the situation, because they also did not initially recognize this stamp as a NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE when the word surcharge on the stamp should have been enough of a definitive clue.
And I have to ask, given who they work for, is that something I should have to explain to them? Yet I literally wrote down the pertinent information about what this stamp is used for, taken directly from the USPS website, to share with them. At least they listened, but I ultimately learned the error was not made by someone at my local post office, so they have no way of figuring out who doesn’t know the basics of their job. This didn’t surprise me.
Why? Because—and this is why I will never, ever vote by mail here in Otero County, New Mexico—for some asinine, inexplicable reason, all of our outgoing and incoming mail is routed through El Paso, Texas. You read that right. Texas. Notoriously corrupt Texas. Rabidly MAGA Texas (not unlike Otero County, unfortunately) where Republicans will stop at nothing to prevent folks from voting because they can’t remain in power without insidious sabotage. Including a US attorney literally threatening Texans yesterday that he will hunt voters down for wholly fabricated crimes not yet committed.
Why on earth would I or any Democrat, for that matter, trust a ballot to go from New Mexico to Texas and back again? I can’t even trust my highly priced postage stamps, used specifically for square envelopes, to be honored by postal clerks there. Stamps I still have more than a dozen of and plan to use, except now I’ll have to worry about a repeat idiotic performance from a compromised system in Texas.
That clueless clerk in El Paso screwed up bigtime, but will likely never be held accountable, and has now irrevocably killed my trust in the USPS. Not just when it comes to unconstitutional subterfuge coming out of DC, but because of incompetent ignorant employees who don’t know about, or how to recognize, NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE postage stamps.
If one clerk can mess with your mail simply because they’re hopelessly uninformed, what would they do with your ballot based on some equally stupid whim about elections they might have heard on Fox News or seen on Truth Social, or that came from a US postmaster who already eagerly demonstrated his willingness to ignore the Constitution on behalf of this connivingly corrupt presidential administration? That’s why I lost so much sleep over this.
Today, I’m headed out to vote in person at the fairgrounds, but only after my much-needed weekly yoga class at the senior center. I need to be fortified with relaxation and a touch of serenity, because who knows what I’ll encounter at the polling place? This is, after all, ridiculously red Otero County that routes mail through Texas and is already disdainful of the Constitution when it comes to separation of church and state, including our law enforcement.
Oh and then there’s the fascist idiot in the White House who’s begun blathering about changing the name of New Mexico again. Too bad we can’t stick a NON-MACHINABLE SURCHARGE postage stamp on his sorry ass and mail him to Russia where he belongs. Or, better yet, send him to jail, along with the US postmaster general.