By KATIE TELLER
Local post offices faced long lines yesterday, but managed to keep up with high demand for 2-cent stamps.
The busy day was a result of the recent increase from 37 to 39 cents for stamps.
"Today is normally the worst day that everybody starts coming in, the Monday after the cost goes up," said Al Colon, customer-service supervisor at the Falmouth post office.
He added that a customer, probably buying for a business, bought 6,000 of the stamps late yesterday morning.
Colon said, however, the Falmouth post office wasn't running low on 2-cent stamps.
Doug Greene, window technician at the College Station post office in the Park and Shop center, said the post office was flooded with customers.
"It hasn't stopped at all," he said. "This'll probably go on for another couple of days."
Greene said that yesterday morning, the post office had no stamps, when the office opened, but received a shipment of 40,000 at 9 a.m.
"We've had quite a few coming in wanting thousands of stamps," he said. "We're trying to limit it. The maximum I've given out today is 500."
Lois Miller, the postal service's district communications coordinator for Richmond, said area post offices seemed to be in good shape.
The increase went into effect Sunday.
Customers at a Fredericksburg post office offered their two cents about the increase.
Lillian Guy, a Spotsylvania resident, was buying a book of 20 2-cent stamps.
"Thank God I've got the extra 2 cents to pay for it," Guy joked, as she stood near the end of a 17-person line. "When there's something like this, you'd think they'd have an extra register."
Gwen Williams, another customer, also endured the line to stock up on 2-cent stamps.
"One man said, 'I'll give you a dime for three of those 2-cent stamps so I don't have to stand in line,'" she said.
But to others, it was no laughing matter.
"They're making a pretty big profit this year but they're blaming Congress," said Charles Hilley, a Spotsylvania County resident, as he stood in line to buy 15 stamps from the stamp machine.
The increase was approved last year, when Congress required the postal service to fund retirement benefits by putting $3.1 billion into an escrow account.
"I don't like it," said Florence Murphy, a Fredericksburg resident, who was buying 42 2-cent stamps from the stamp machine to supplement a roll of 37-cent stamps she got before Christmas. "They didn't give us enough time to let us know."
According to Miller with the U.S. Postal Service, the increase was announced in November.
"I know that we've been sending things out all along," she said. "I guess people were so tied up with the holidays."
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