I thought it would be a simple errand: mailing the wedding invitations that my fiancée, Nicole, had so carefully designed for our fall nuptials.
Walking into my local post office in Clarendon, I said, “I’d like to mail some mail, please.” Apparently, that was a bridge too far. “We don’t have any stamps,” the clerk curtly responded and sent me on my way.
Undeterred, I drove down Wilson Boulevard to the post office in Courthouse, where I was once again met with an empty stare and stamp drawer. The very institution ordained to supply postage had betrayed me twofold. My mind began replaying the Seinfeld scene of a rental car company with no cars to rent.
Wising up, I asked the man behind the counter in Courthouse to check in with the post office in Fort Myer, lest I make another stamp-less stop. “They have stamps,” he promised.
What he neglected to mention, which I discovered upon my arrival, was that our invitations were 0.1 oz. over the standard weight, due to their “vellum overlay” (a phrase Nicole had just added to my vocabulary), and the Fort Myer branch didn’t have the smaller denominations of stamps I needed.
Regaling the third postal clerk of my plight, and pleading that one man can endure only so many post office rejections, I asked which branch was sure to have the stamps I required. This elicited the insider tip that the source of all local stamps was the regional USPS hub in Merrifield, about 30 minutes away. Motivated to keep my fiancée happy and my wedding on track, I set off.
After waiting in a long line at Merrifield, I finally reached the counter and requested, “I would like to mail 86 wedding invitations with the minimum number of stamps possible.”
The kind woman behind the counter smiled and said, “The butterfly stamp will cover one ounce. The school bus stamp is the least expensive option to cover the remaining 0.1 ounce.”
“Wonderful!” I responded, credit card in hand, relieved that this misadventure was finally coming to an end.
“Um, sir?” she interjected gently before I could swipe my card. “Your invitations are beautiful,” she said, noting their elegant calligraphy, their sophisticated yet understated color palette of powder blue, French blue and white, and how nicely the pearlescent card stock complemented that sheer vellum overlay. “Do you think your fiancée might prefer if they were sent with something other than a cartoon school bus?”
The thought hadn’t quite crossed my mind.
“I can offer beautiful flower and leaf stamps for 56 cents more per stamp,” she suggested.
Facing a dilemma as old as time, my heart and mind did battle over aesthetic minutiae vs. fiscal prudence. Observing me in the throes of gridlock—with an ever-growing line of impatient customers behind me—the clerk added, “I’m so excited because the butterfly and leaf go together so naturally, like husband and wife!” Such deep philosophical analogue was unassailable. I was sold.
And so began my next trial—affixing 172 stamps, aligned just right so the angles matched, neither overlapping nor too far apart, on 86 envelopes. The clerk did the first one, applying the stamps perfectly with the speed and precision of a surgeon. (Good news for the Adams family, first alphabetically.) The rest were on me.
A half-hour later, she came by to check my work. “Oh wow, you’re doing so good!” she said in a tone that had not reached my ears since fourth-grade art class.
When at last the invitations were signed, sealed and ready to be delivered, my mentor gave me one last boost of positive reinforcement. “Your fiancée will be so pleased! The color of the leaves perfectly complements the subtle orange of the butterfly’s spots!” Just as I intended.
Her colleague, having wandered over to see what all the fuss was about, was a bit less veiled in her assessment. “You were really going to start your wedding off on a school bus?! Men…” she muttered, shaking her head as she walked away.
Driving home, I called my grandma to recount my epic postal odyssey. The mention of school bus stamps elicited an audible gasp, followed by a long sigh of relief once I explained that I had instead opted for flowers and leaves. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet. “Thank goodness!” she said. “It’s too hot for so much excitement.”
“Not to worry, Grandma,” I assured her. “The wedding is saved.”
Nicole and I got married in September 2025 in a beautiful garden in D.C., accompanied by Grandma, a few butterflies, and many autumnal leaves and flowers. My new bride and I look forward to plenty of school buses in our future, maybe five or six years from now—not on stamps, but in real life. Right here in Arlington.
David Rifkin is an eight-year Arlingtonian who has worked in international affairs and strategy consulting. His wife, Nicole, is an attorney who focuses on international law and arbitration.
