It is the season for sending Christmas cards, so just over a week ago I posted a batch of cards to friends and family. Over the last week they have all arrived back at my apartment with stickers telling me that I had put the wrong postage on them; silly me!

The thing is, I had taken them to the post office to post them. I handed them over at the counter, separated by destination country: two for the Netherlands, two for the USA, two for New Zealand, and one for the UK. The counter clerk calculated the postage (not me) and put the (incorrect) stamps on them, but it turns out he made a mistake with all of them.

I cannot fix the problem by adding more stamps, because the existing stamps have now been postmarked. I will have to put the cards into new envelopes and re-post them.

Call me petty, if you like, but by taking the cards to the post office and asking at the counter for them to be posted, they made a contract with me to deliver them. Their mistake, and the cards' return to me, is therefore in breach of that contract. I expect, however, that this argument will not impress the post office, and I will not get a refund for the wasted postage nor for the cost of new envelopes, let alone for the cost of my time.