Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-05-22 - 6:31 a.m.

For those who joined in TheLeslieShow's "Exploding Fridge Fund" surprise, my heartfelt thanks. Please read the note here.


A Milestone

I reordered checks tonight.

Wow, you're thinking. She has a such an exciting life; I wish I had an exciting life like that. But wait - this was kind of exciting. I haven't done this in, like, ten years.

Ten years ago, I had money, but I had no time. I was always running out of checks. This was before the ATM revolution, people - back when you had to write a blue slip of paper every time you wanted something, unless you carried the green slips of paper, which I never did (and still don't.) It was also back in the days when you could run out of the blue papers and actually persuade the grocery store to let you write a check on a deposit slip. A more genteel age, it was. But I always ran out of checks, and THEN I ran out of deposit slips to turn into checks, and then I ran out of the counter checks the bank would code for me (frowning disapprovingly as they did so), and then I would have to get the green papers for my wallet, and no matter how many I got I always ran out of THOSE too. It didn't matter that the bank would cleverly put a reorder form over the second-to-last pad of checks - so you would see it and think, "Wow, I cannot write any more checks because this form is in the way, I must go down to the bank and have them tear it off for me. " Did I ever think that? No! I just grabbed the pad UNDERNEATH the one with the slip - I'm not STUPID. So it messed up the check numbers - who cares? That's for nerds who actually OPEN their bank statements. And then, when I used that pad up, I would grab the last pad and cleverly TEAR OFF the paper reminding me to reorder checks, and drop it in the bottom of my purse and use that pad up too.

So one day I went in to the bank and I said grandly, "I have more money than time. Print me ten million checks." And they said, "What?" And I said, "You heard me. Back the truck up, baby, I am NEVER ordering checks again in this lifetime." So I ordered a million checks, and they charged my account accordingly, and the next month the ATM revolution hit and we went from writing like fifty checks a month two writing TWO. Leaving me with an entire shelf in my home devoted to check storage - so many that in order to use them up I had to spill coffee on some and drop some on the floor of the car, and finally burn some up, too.

So. Ordering checks tonight was like a big deal. It WAS a big deal, because I did not want my same order of a million, and I want them sent to THIS address and not my home address, meaning I cannot order them online or using the automated system (which I wanted to do to avoid listening to, "Oh, it's you! The idiot with the seventeen cases of checks back in ninety-four -- we STILL talk about you! And about that overdraft...") and I could not even talk to a regular Customer Service Person but had to wait and wait and speak to a Customer Service Check Fraud Detector Lady, who had somehow gotten the idea that I wasn't me at all but only someone trying to pretend to be me to get a box of checks. I don't know - maybe because I could not tell her how many accounts I had at her fine banking institution. "Well, I had a Money Market, but I think I closed that..." So she was a very very suspicious Fraud Detector Lady, she was right on top of her job, preventing anyone from stealing my overdraft. But I fooled her - I knew right where I was born, so she had to agree to send me my ONE box, yes ONE box, of regular old cheap end-bound no-carbon blue checks, at this here temporary address.

Of course, now I cannot use the automated system or the online system next time, either, or the checks will again come to this address, where I am hoping not to be in one pad of checks or less. I must again speak to the Fraud Squad and persuade them that it's not unusual for me not to know how many accounts I have, or to order a million checks at once, or to have a slight overdraft which we do not NEED to discuss at this time.

So now I wait to see if it's the FedEx truck that shows up, or the Feds. I had to have the checks rush shipped, because - ha! - I'm out again, and that cost as much as the checks themselves, almost tempting me to ask if it would be the same shipping charge if I ordered another million instead. I didn't; I think she'd had enough of me.

And I want to see if they still let me be a "Valued Customer Since 1976".

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