.png)
On this bleak arctic evening as the wind rattles my door like a debt collector on commission, I collapse into an easy chair, a flagon of medicinal brandy at my elbow, and commence leafing through a volume of the greatest stories ever told. I refer, of course, to my checkbook. Within these pages dwell terse tales of haste, ambition, intrigue, naivete, addiction and monumentally bad judgment.
For those of you who make your purchases and pay your bills through automatic withdrawals from your bank account, let me explain that paying by check is the cumbersome, old-fashioned way of doing business. You get your bills in the mail, open each one to a gasp of incredulity, then sit down and write a check for the amount designated in each bill.
But there's more involved than that. After you've written the check, which requires you to enter the exact amount to be paid (twice) and your account number, you then have to place it in an envelope on which you must write your return address and affix a postage stamp. All this is followed by a trip either to your mail box or a post office to drop the missive off for transit. Lots of steps, lots of annoyance. And why?
I am not a technophobe. Usually I'm an early adapter. I was on TikTok when it was simply Tik. But I choose to write checks precisely because there IS more labor involved, a brake that leads me to buy less and save more. While I do not consider myself parsimonious, I do regard each financial transaction as a struggle between good and evil.
Enough, though, of this prelude. Come with me now as I undertake my footnoted stroll down Memory Lane.
Check 6135, $347.60, the monthly premium for BlueCross BlueShield, my top of the line health provider that in the event of my hospitalization guarantees me an unlimited supply of flesh colored Band Aids and a bullet to bite on during surgery.
Check 6146, $75 for a year's subscription to “The New York Review of Books,” a journal I cherish principally for its highbrow personal ads. Example: “DWF, 68, PhDesirable. Loves long walks, Welsh cuisine, sunsets and taxidermy.”
Check 6170, $50 to Hey There! Graphics for a front porch sign with an arrow pointing down that says “Beware of the Cobra.”
Check 6190, $22.74 to Le Vegan Chic for a bucket of Buffalo Wings-flavored tofu.
Check 6212, $29.95 for a Collaborator's Survival Kit consisting of a 2 x 3 white flag and a pair of all-terrain knee pads.
Check 6217, $12 for a trial membership in the ambulance-based dating service, HoSpicey.
Check 6220, $250 to Adopt-a-Guilt, an organization that seeks out and awards small stipends to individual members of various marginalized groups who maintain that my race and gender are the chief sources of their misery.
Check 6225, $500 to Myra Gretz for her college tuition fund. (Check voided and never sent after Myra flaunted on Facebook her new sleeve tattoo and a nose ring of the type we used to clench into our pigs' snouts to discourage them from rooting out of their pens—collectively more than ample proof of her glaring deficiency in thrift, foresight and aesthetics.)
Check 6278, $2,500 to producer Otto M. Yune for his “can't miss” (did miss) stage production of “Covid: The Musical.”
Check 6280, $100 to Up, Up and A Way, a lobbying group backing conjugal visits for astronauts.
Check 6293, $27.14 to Amazon for a dozen review copies of my searing assault on refined sensibilities, “Scorched Mirth & Acid Reflex.”
I could go on — and generally do. But there are some expenditures about which the less said the better. Maybe next time.
(Please send your comments or questions to stormcoast@mindspring.com with “And Then There's This” in the subject line. And thanks for reading.)
ความคิดเห็น