All along, I felt like there had to be someone else out there this was happening to, if only I could get the word out to them or had any idea of who they were, and so I find I’ve been fairly eager to talk about it to try to warn others.
I found the check today. Three months it had been waiting to be found and put in the bank, and given our expenses of late, how terrible our mail service is, and the fact that the place is only three stoplights away, I drove over to our local branch after Joe finished up.
The teller who wasn’t busy was new; the others were familiar faces but I’d never seen her before.
Her computer crashed trying to enter the amount.
And so, while it sorted itself out, turns out we had a moment to chat, and I told her a little of what had been going on around here and why I wanted that sum in that account.
She got very interested. She started asking questions. She had an older friend she was worried about. And their heater wasn’t working very well…
“Are the headaches worst in the mornings?” I asked.
“YES!” she exclaimed in a moment of recognition. The friend’s furnace was from 1986. Oh, she couldn’t wait. That thing needed to be inspected. Suddenly everything made sense.
And I went home really really glad I’d lost that check and finally gotten it delivered. In person. On the right day. And the familiar faces were all busy because other people had come in too at just the right time just ahead of me.
Joe, you probably won’t get the call because the teller commutes in all the way from Modesto (yow!) but I think you just saved another life.