It All Adds Up

1. 1.Of course the minute I start typing this everything I was thinking instantly flies out of my head.
2. I’m laying in bed typing it on my phone with one finger and wondering if I can actually finish it in 20 minutes.
3. The dog is barking.
4. It’s probably a deer but we did have some bears this year.
5. In New York.
6. Not New York City but only an hour drive north.
7. Bears can cover 300 miles in a day so it could have easily made it there by now.
8. I hope.
9. The frogs are croaking incessantly this year we’ve had so much rain.
10. I can smell the smoke from Canada again.
11. The crickets are chiming in too.
12. And I can hear the traffic.
13. Are you still reading this? I mean, maybe you have something better to do with your time?
14. Apparently not.
15. I am looking over at a painting I just bought.
16. I give myself a small personal allowance every month and it was worth four months of that so I just finished paying for it.
17. I saw it two years ago and wanted it then but with a daughter in college there was no question of an allowance.
18. So I just put it out of my mind.
19. Then I saw the artist at a show recently and she had a lot of work up but not that one.
20. I said I liked what she had but really the one I would have wanted was…
21. And when I described it she pulled the image up on her phone.
22. She still had it and said I could come by her studio to look at it any time.
23. Well, several months went by and with one thing or another I didn’t make it there.
24. Then I got a call, she was leaving for the Netherlands soon, for a while.
25. Did I still want it?
26. It happened to coincide with a bit of money so I sent her a deposit.
27. Then I sent her a second check.
28. Then she went to the Netherlands.
29. Before cashing the check.
30. I wrote another check that day.
31. My older daughter was buying a car from a friend and she, my daughter, was overseas and could she transfer the money and I would write a check instead of an electronic transfer.
32. Ok.
33. So I mailed it.
34. From my mailbox.
35. Yes, I’ve already been told by several people how stupid that was.
36. So a week later I looked at my account and saw that a check for an ungodly amount had bounced.
37. Here is my twenty minutes.
38. I failed the challenge dramatically.
39. So you can stop reading now if you are bored.
40. Anyway, the check bounced.
41. I was confused, because I only write about one check a month at most.
42. And I have duplicate checks.
43. So I went to the bank.
44. First we cancelled the check for the artwork.
45. Then the bank put a hold on my debit card while I was shopping.
46. I went back to the bank.
47. They advised me to close the account and open a new one.
48. My daughter’s friend had never received the check.
49. I waited a week or more for a new debit card and a new set of checks.
50. The bank said to send it certified mail if I was going to send another check. So I sent it from the post office.
51. Two days later a call came into my land line.
52. Yes, I still have one.
53. It doesn’t ring because I can’t stand the sound and no one ever calls us on it anyway.
54. It was a detective from St.Louis, Missouri.
55. Not where I live or where I sent the check.
56. He arrested someone from Houston, Texas for something and it turned out he had my check.(The one that bounced.)
57. It was an interstate check washing operation.
58. But unless he could prove it was deposited in Missouri it was out of his jurisdiction.
59. Unless he could put together a Federal case.
60. This is the check for the car we are talking about, not the check for the artwork.
61. He asked if I would go to my local station and lodge a report.
62. So I did.
63. It’s probably a good thing when you don’t know where the entrance is, even if you’ve lived in the same place for over 15 years.
64. Anyway, a nice, quite handsome young officer with blue eyes took my statement and conferred with his superior.
65. There was some not quite two way glass in the room so I didn’t quite feel like a criminal myself.
66. I am really quite scared of the police.
67. It’s an authority thing.
68. They gave me a booklet on how to stop identity theft.
69. So after grocery shopping I went home and spent several hours blocking various things.
70. I had never requested a credit report before.
71. Did you know you can get a free one every year?
72. After trying unsuccessfully to erase various misspellings of my name I gave up and called it a day.
73. At least I won’t be receiving unsolicited offers in the mail for quite a while.
74. Then a friend sent me a podcast on check washing which sent me into a spiral about the other check. The art one.
75. The artist was still out of the country.
76. Finally she returned.
77. She had a show in the Netherlands, I think I said that.
78. By this time the third installment was due, and almost the fourth.
79. So we arranged for me to pick it up and pay for the balance.
80. I went over to her studio.
81. She had the piece framed and hanging on a nice white wall.
82. I still love it as much as I did when I first saw it.
83. The frame is nice too.
84. A friend of hers, a Vietnam vet makes the frames for her.
85. And the paper is mulberry paper.
86. She bought it in Paris at the store Picasso used to shop at.
87. Which is fitting.
88. Because it’s an abstract piece.
89. I would rather own it than a Picasso.
90. “By the way”, she said, “I have your check.”
91. Thank goodness I only have to worry about one group of criminals.
92. That means the check was stolen in a fourth state from mine and the detective’s and the criminal’s.
93. I brought my new artwork home.
94. And now I’m looking at it as I type.
95. And enjoying it.
96. But beneath the surface I am still worrying about the check I sent certified mail.
97. Because a delivery was attempted.
98. My daughter’s friend said she got the notice.
99. And she will pick it up from the post office.
100. Soon.

Thanks, Judey Kalchik and Cendrine Marrouat at Haiku Shack for promoting this unofficial challenge. I hope you had fun and learned my lesson too. Enjoy art, life, and try not to put any checks in the mail. Best wishes, Natalie