fenchurch

And now, an anecdote.

The events described below transpired approximately 6 weeks ago. There is no particular reason I am telling them now, other than my desire to post something before the month of March has passed me by completely, and my irrepressible penchant for adding to the Humiliating Misadventures of Fenchurch.

So several months ago I was delighted to receive a completely unanticipated tax refund check in the very significant neighborhood of $800, which I resolved to deposit promptly. Unfortunately, in the Dictionary of Fenchurch, "promptly" is an extremely broad term which in this case meant I would clip it to my refrigerator, where surely it could be neither lost nor forgotten, and deposit it next time I was heading in the Navy Federal direction. As it happens, this definition of promptly involved me returning home to Virginia for a two week visit before getting around to any sort of banking actions. Upon my return, I resolved to take care of it immediately (which, as you may have guessed, also has a pretty broad definition in the DF but in this case did in fact mean right away). Much to my chagrin, upon close inspection of the refrigerator (the place I was 100% CERTAIN I had put it), the check was...cue dramatic music...GONE.

What the what?? That's right, gone. Thus followed a frenzied and thorough searching of my entire kitchen area...under the fridge, on the fridge, hell I took every last thing out and looked IN the whole damn fridge, thinking maybe it had somehow slipped out of the clip while I was foraging for a midnight snack and floated into a produce drawer or something, but it was nowhere to be found. Certain as I was that I had left it on the fridge, I am well aware of my own tendency to put things down into various vortexes to strange lone sock dimensions and so forth, so I searched the whole damn apartment. Every sinister pile of procrastinatory paperwork: searched. The unlikely bedroom: searched. The seemingly-innocent bathroom: searched. I did it ALL, but to no avail. Finally I admitted embarrassed, frustrated, sweaty defeat and called the IRS hotline, where I was bemused and slightly cheered to discover there is a specific number you can push if you have received and lost your refund check...

Anyways after being reassured that it had not been cashed by some sort apartment-infiltrating fairy miscreant, they assured me a new one would arrive in 6-8 weeks. Relieved and dejected, I put down the phone and wandered off, spent, to pursue other things.

6-8 weeks later I had, of course, forgotten the whole thing, and was therefore delighted once more by the arrival of this hefty gift of a check. Resolving not to make the same mistake twice, I put it directly into my wallet and left for the bank early the next morning. I arrived at the bank uneventfully, deposited the check, and drove away happy to put the entire incident behind me. As it happens, I was driving directly from the bank to the airport to pick up some good friends. (Where am I going with this, you may wonder? Fear not, for we are nearing the thrilling conclusion...) Upon reaching the airport, I directed my car to short term parking, took my ticket from the helpful automated dispenser, and found a space with little to no incitement to homicidal rage. Once I had parked satisfactorily, I pulled down the sun visor to stash the parking ticket where I always do, in that little flippy car mirror, and guess what fluttered innocently into my lap.....MY MOTHERFUCKING TAX REFUND CHECK.

I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.





Anyways, I took some solace in the fact that I was able to immediately bombard my travel-weary friends with the loudest, angriest, hand-wavingest possible telling of the above story, all while tearing the offending check into itsy bitsy pieces. Fortunately, they are wonderful friends and very understanding of the fact that any time you roll with me, the odds are pretty good you will be greeted by yelling and arm-waving as I recount some manner of horrible wrongdoing perpetrated by or to me before ever getting around to saying hello, but I can't say it's how I would have chosen for their California vacation to begin......oh well.

Anyways, that's it. I don't know what prompted me to share that story now. Probably another idiotic and forgetful thing I did weeks ago and didn't realize until today. But that's an anecdote for another time...