1 Rule for them,

and a different rule for me...or am I just becoming increasingly paranoid?

This is something that's been gnawing away at me for well over a week and I think I have to finally give vent.

At least 10 days ago I was dreadfully organised and started my Christmas present wrapping, specifically those presents that needed to be posted off somewhere. I then packaged them up into boxes, wrapped them again in brown paper and trotted off to the local post office. I took with me the few Christmas cards I needed to post too.

So I had 2 boxes, each a little larger than a shoe box, but not too heavy, 1 smallish jiffy bag and 6 Christmas cards, all going to either England or Ireland, just a quick hop across the canal (as the Germans call it) not far at all. And my bill? 50 euro...now I always mishear/misunderstand fifty and fifteen when spoken in German but even so, I wasn't amused to get no change whatsoever from a 50 note...

The guy commented that my cards cost 3 euro each to post because they were a 'funny size'. I don't know about you, but I choose cards for the picture/joke/message first and size second (although I certainly steer well clear of those huge padded numbers that come in their box) but these cards were smaller than the average card and would certainly fit through even the meagerest letterbox (which I thought was what the rule was - pay more if it don't fit, no?)

There was nothing I could do about it, just suck it up, I thought to myself, forget about it, at least the job's done, parcels and cards sent...but then this last week I've been receiving Christmas cards from the UK, and it was the last one that tipped me over the edge. From my sister in law, and it's A5 sized at least, just about fit into a letter box, and how much stampage did it have?

88p.

88p!

Where is the logic in that? I. DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND.

Maybe I need to be more German in my approach to this matter and either not send any cards or maybe I should argue the case with the guy in the post office, it just seems to be ridiculous to have to pay more for the postage than for the card, especially when it is only going across the canal and when I know I can order parcel after parcel from Next/Boden/M&S and pay only £6 per awkwardly shaped box....mutter, mutter, mutter.


Phew, vent over.