The Pay Check Debacle... AKA... BE Careful What You Put Through Your Shredder!

 

The Shredder Container

Being that today is the last day of the month and payday for teachers, I drove over to Central Office to pick up my June check. Instead of driving directly to my bank with the deposit, I went to my hair appointment.....after 6 years of mid-length hair, I was about to have it all cut OFF!  Once I finished there, I went to the post office to post my two quilt squares to Anna Maria Horner and her “Rainbow Around the Block” project for making and giving quilts to the victims of the Tennessee floods before winter arrives. Continuing down my list, I went to WallyWorld to pick up milk and sugar and then home.  Before pulling down the driveway, I got the “mail” from our box, proceded to drive on down, parked the car, grabbed the my bag, paycheck, and all the “junk” mail.  Once inside the front door, I dumped it all on the dining room table and started going through the flyers and the rest of the junk so I could shred it as I always do. Once I had finished, I got this sick feeling deep inside my stomach.....oh, dear.....where is my green paycheck?  Immediately I started freaking out, charging about the house and back and forth to the car several time to no avail.  IT WAS GONE, and I knew where.  

By now the reality of the situation was hitting home, so I began planning out what I needed to do.  I did not want to call the school board office....I knew that would NOT be good.  Then I had one of Oprah’s lightbulb moments.  I taught the county treasurer’s children and have know her for years.  Knowing that the checks are all cut at the county treasurer’s office and not by and at the school board office, I decided to call Carol, our country treasurer.  When I broke the news to her she couldn’t believe it.  I asked if it had ever happened to anyone else during her 20 or so years in the office only to hear, NO!  She said someone had lost one in their chicken house and another had burned up one on top of the toaster, but no one had called saying she had shredded her check only 2 hours after receiving it.  I started getting that sick feeling all over again. Things didn’t look so good. Carol, being the lovely person she is, told me to calm down and gave me the following directions:  find enough of the pieces of the check to prove it had actually been shredded and could NOT be cashed, bring them to her, and she would cut me a new check. 

 The pile of shredded pieces I was going through-the needed ones on the right!

Now the agony began....one and a half hours of going through the trash can of the shredded paper pieces.  Fortunately, our checks are a green, gridded paper so I was looking for light green and not white.  What an undertaking! Fortunately, I had not torn the check on the top half from the check stub on the bottom half so there was a bit more to hold together as it was cut and squished going through the blades.  The good Lord was kind to me.  I still cannot believe it, but I actually found a sliver with 3 of the 6 digit red check number on it, a piece with my name on it, another with the am’t of the check, and the funniest piece was the one that said “Void after 90 Days!!!!!  Once I found the am’t and the red number, I called Carol and she said to get in the car with all of the pieces in an envelope, she had already cut my check, and she would be happy to escort me over to the bank to be sure it got deposited....I thought that comment was pretty darn clever.  I used Scotch tape and affixed the important pieces to the paper so I wouldn’t lose them, wrote a little thank you to Carol at the top, and put the rest of the green pieces in a sealed envelope.

Pieces with my name info on them.

Piece with check number on it...love the “void after 90 days!"

All the important pieces taped to sheet for Carol.

At this point, I called Buddy into the room and had him take these photos so I could actually show them to her when I got to the county treasurer’s office. Trust me, the smile on my face is because of the pieces with the check# and the check am’t in my hands!

Genie with major haircut holding pieces with name and check # on them

Well, it all ended up fine.  My check is in the bank, the receipt is in my desk file, and we have all have lots and lots of laughs at my gigantic boo-boo.The moral is...........THINK BEFORE YOU SHRED!!!!  Once it is a done deal, you do not want to ever want to have to try to reconstruct any document.  IT IS NOT A FUN THING TO DO! Hope you all get a good chuckle out of the photos......Genie

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
~Anonymous