Quaint

“I’m going to the post office to buy a stamp,” I say, slipping on my jacket.

“Why don’t you get an entire book of stamps instead?” my wife asks from the back room.

I pretend I didn’t hear her as I pull the front door closed behind me and lock it.

Buying a single stamp is a heady process. It demands walking, standing in line, talking to people, seeing cute and ugly babies, asking about the dog sniffing at my pant leg, maybe even petting it, helping a person with the door, perhaps shaking hands or hugging, waving hello and talking to even more people.

“I didn’t think you heard me,” she says when I get home, seeing that I bought the entire book and not the single stamp as proposed.

I smile at her, placing them on the counter and she knows then that I heard her.

What few know though, is that I never really go out to buy anything. That purchase is only a by-product of a larger agenda. I went out to bypass the television and radio, to avoid my computer, and to ignore social media. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no pen, paper or pencil, no cellphone.

Instead, I went out to experience life in the real and to feel alive and now, I must figure out who I’m going to write and mail a letter to. I have a stamp.