1 3 4 32 41

They're not lucky lotto numbers. They're not the numbers from LOST (silly reader, those were 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).

No, these are the denominations of the piles of years-old stamps that have set up house in one of my desk drawers, along with years worth of free return labels from the Braille Institute, Children's Hospital and seasonally-tinged ones from the Salvation Army.

Before the post office started selling their Forever stamps - the ones immune to future postage increases no matter what price you buy them at - they used to up the rate regularly. And the only way to accommodate the new rate was to buy additional stamps to make up the price difference. Which is why the aforementioned desk drawer is lousy with unused one, three, four and five cent stamps.

When the Forever stamps arrived, self-adhesive and promotionally tied in with icons like Buzz Lightyear, James Dean and Harry Potter, the postage leftovers never stood a chance.

But it occurred to me that in my never-ending battle against clutter, piles of paper and books not organized by size or author, one mess I could easily eliminate would be these stamps that've been piling up. All I have to do is use them.

First class postage is 47 cents right now. So a 32, three 4's and a 3-center and my letter is on it's way. Of course, if you're doing the math, that's five stamps per envelope. Which is no problem if the envelope's long enough. But on the smaller one it gets a little crowded.

Using up all these stamps looks less like postage and more like a collage. If I were the recipient, I'd be very happy someone took the time to create it, and marvel at the work that went into fitting them all on there.

Unless it's one of my bills. Then I'd just marvel if the check cleared the first time.