POST HASTE, by Colin Howard

(As Mr. Simpson might have told it to his wife)

Is it you, dear? At last! You’re late, aren’t you? I was beginning to worry. Did you post the letter?
- The letter! You can’t imagine my adventures to post that damned letter of yours! Oh! I’m terribly tired!
- What an extraordinary little husband you are, dear! You only go to post a letter and get involved in adventures! I’ll have to be careful next time and not let you have the opportunity…Ha! Ha!
- If you give me the opportunity, dear, I’ll explain to you the whole affair.
- The affair, now?
- Please, don’t talk nonsense, dear, and listen. I went with the letter to post it, you know…
- Did you do it, at last?
- Please, listen. And don’t be so anxious as it’s a long story. I went … Well, I’ve told you that. The matter is that you gave me it unstamped and I didn’t have any coppers on me, so I had to stop the first pedestrian I met and ask him to lend me threepence…
- Did you have the courage?
- Fortunately, he was one of our neighbours, but he hadn’t either.
- What did you do, then?
- Nothing. He was so polite that took me home to lend me the money and as I didn’t know the way to the Post-Office he also accompanied me, but the automatic stamp-machine was empty…
- Dear me!
- That isn’t all. I dropped your letter face downwards on the pavement and it got mud on it…
- I think you did not bother posting it, did you?
- You are wrong! As I knew your insistence about posting it I went to his home to look for a book of stamps, but it was empty, too.
- I see you weren’t able to send the letter, then.
- Yes, I was! I hurried up not to miss the last collection.
- But, haven’t you told me you failed to get a stamp?
- Please, listen. Our neighbor recommended me the only thing that could be done. I sent the letter unstamped.
- And did you send our invitation to dinner unstamped and full of mud? What an unpractical husband you are! You could have put it under the door, so simply!
- But don’t get angry, dear, the consignee will only have to pay double postage in the morning…
- Did you thank that kind neighbor at least? I wonder who he is…
- That’s the problem. At the end I remembered that he is the person whom our invitation was sent…Ji.ji, because the house of his, where I was twice, had the same address as that on the envelope of your letter… Ji, ji.
- What a stupid little husband you are! You do nothing to help me! You always do wrong things! You’re a useless little man! You are…