Definitely one of those WTF? days

I really need to spend less time sitting in front of this computer. Every time I go wandering around the Intertubes reminders of just how few cylinders most people seem to operate on keep popping up.

First, for those of you who may not have noticed, coloring books for adults have become A Thing in recent months. You can get coloring books that have a specific theme (I have been tempted by the Outlander one) or you can get ones that are just vaguely psychedelic or mandala-like patterns. The idea is that coloring relaxes you. You zone out as you focus on staying inside the lines, you forget about big problems (your boss is a jerk, the roof has started leaking, you just found out one of your adult children has decided to move back home) and mellow out while fussing over the exactly right shade of red to color the rose petals. It all seems pretty harmless. A bit odd, true, but harmless.

Or so I thought. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I now know that coloring can lead to demon possession. Start filling in one of those mandalas and the next thing you know you're on the short road to Hell. After all, mandalas aren't "Christian." Christ on a crutch -- the only way coloring a picture of anything (a Buddhist mandala, the Millennium Falcon, a rose bush) is going to send you on the express route to damnation is if that's where you wanted to go to begin with. I really need to stop asking how stupid people can get. . .

I should have stepped away from the computer after the coloring leads to selling one's soul to Satan post. Instead I kept scrolling on down. And that's when I learned that the United States Postal Service has decided it's no longer selling stamps for overseas postage. The person sharing this bit of knowledge said that she'd gone to her local Post Office to pick up some Global stamps and they didn't have any. When she asked, she got told they're not selling them anymore. Ever. She was told to just slap 3 domestic postage Forever stamps on her letters.

To say this struck me as bizarre would be the usual massive understatement. For a start, the Global stamp costs $1.20; the current domestic 1 ounce or less rate is 49 cents. If I had to substitute regular stamps for the Global, I'd use two 49 and one 22 cents. The last time I checked, 49 + 49 + 22 = 120. I usually keep a stash of 22-cent stamps on hand because that's what you slap on a domestic letter for every ounce over that first ounce. But did this occur to anyone in the discussion thread that followed the dread news that the post office was going to force us all to spend $1.47 for overseas mail? Nope. These people, who supposedly write to a lot of pen pals and therefore buy a lot of stamps, apparently do not know that the USPS issues stamps in more than 2 values. Holy shit. Saying "the stupid, it burns" doesn't begin to cover it.

In any case, the Post Office has not stopped issuing Global stamps. They issued a brand new design on February 22 -- it's kind of cool; it has a picture of the moon on it -- and they're available in most post offices as well as through the USPS website.

As someone who mails a fair amount of stuff on a regular basis, I know that local post offices do occasionally run out of some types of stamps. It happens every year before Christmas: one particular holiday stamp design will be more popular than the others so it sells out fast. I've even had it happen where I needed Global stamps and they were sold out, so the postal clerk would (and here's a real news flash for all the gullible types who were freaking about OMG no Global stamps!!) meter the postage. You know, like when you mail a package and they print out the postage sticker with the exact amount required printed on it and slap it on the parcel? Believe it or not, dumbfucks gullible people, it is possible to mail stuff without even having a stamp on it. Just hand your money to the clerk and he or she will print out the sticker and affix to the envelope.

It's on afternoons like this that I understand exactly why Donald Trump can win elections.