TheBanyanTree: The Elusive Check Stub

[Monique Colver]

A slippery slimy little creature, the checkstub. Perhaps not so slimy,
perhaps more ephemeral, more of a will o' the wisp of which many rumors are
heard, but few substantiated. We catch a glimpse of them, now and again,
quick little creatures the color of white copy paper (as opposed to the new
glow-in-dark fluorescent orange copy paper, which is fun but annoying), but
we can never quite catch them. Sneaking up on them seems like such a fine
idea. We think that if they don't know we're coming their defenses will be
down, and we can pounce on them and take them back to their cages. But they
sit in the dark and wait, knowing that we will come, and when we turn on the
lights there's a quick rustling, and the faintest smell of ozone, and we
think that perhaps we saw a flash of white, but it's gone so quickly we
can't be sure. 

 

We look at our check register and we ponder the possibility of guessing what
the notes, which are like so much scales, or would be if checkstubs
resembled snakes, which they don't, on the checkstubs might say, if we were
to ever get close enough to see them, but we know that's not possible, and
so we make up our own categories. This expense for $1,275.82? We'll say that
was for a book of stamps. The price of postage being what it is, who's to
say we're not right? This expense for $72.47? Let's call that meals and
entertainment. I'm not sure who was eating and being entertained, but that's
rather irrelevant at this point. This expense for $8.94? Perhaps a utility
payment, or advertising, or even, if we're being lax in our duties, office
expense.

 

Receipts are like checkstubs both in temperament and in their ephemeral
nature. We can never find receipts, and when we do, they don't match
anything we might expect them to match. Like a checkstub. One would think
that at least one receipt would match one checkstub, or one invoice would
match one payment, for that matter, but that's not how it works. It's as if
the office itself is one big cosmic clothes dryer, and just as you're doomed
to get one sock back from a perfectly healthy pair of socks, so are you
doomed to have your receipts and checkstubs singular instead of paired, as
well as your payments and invoices.

 

The remedy for this will follow in our next installment.