Another in the series of AverageJoe’s day-by-day attempts to just get along. And failing. For other stories in the series, check out:
– There’s Something Wrong With The Car
– I’m Not an Expert on Everything
– Networking 101: Meeting Basketball Insiders (a How To manual)
– Blog Post of the Week! by Money Beagle
A recent post at DebtBlackHole.com showed some awesome Wonder Woman prints, and reminded me that we’ve probably come to the end of the golden age of taking out a pen and actually writing a check.
I miss that sexiness in my banking. I’m not referring to Wonder Woman’s …ah….assets, either.
My debit card has a free picture of a baseball on the front, but there was once a time when people would whip out a cool pad of Bugs Bunny checks to purchase a new toaster. Or pizza rolls.
Those were the days.
Better You Than Me
I’m that guy.
There’s no way I’d ever give up the few extra dollars it costs for Skeletor or the Detroit Tigers logo on my checking account. My checks are and always will be white with the name of my bank across the front.
Beyond creative.
But that doesn’t mean I’m a hater. I love creative checks if you use them.
Checks are gone partly because scammers figured out that it didn’t matter what you wrote on a check. If you shopped at Sears, you could make the check out to “Mickey Mouse” and write “One million, seven hundred and seventy seven dollars” across the front. If the little box said $32.50 in it, guess how much money was deducted from your account? You’ve got it. $32.50. And it wasn’t made out to your favorite mouse, either. The cash went to Sears because they’d presented it for deposit.
But that’s not the reason I miss checks. I have a better one for you. Read on…..
My Irrelevant Tale
My daughter, like many, played youth soccer from about six years old on. I’m not the world’s biggest drinker, but I so wanted to be drunk at these games.
The kids swarmed like hungry wolves around the ball, all kicking each other at the same time. You had no idea which kid was yours. Then again, it really didn’t matter.
The coach yelled, “Don’t bunch up!”
He was a nice guy, but if the best soccer advice you can offer is “don’t bunch up,” youth soccer strategy might be over your head.
Luckily, I met some nice parents at the games. Many are still friends today. One who isn’t, is Dick Smith.
I’d plop down my chair next to this dad, Dick, who was out there like me, taking one for the team every week. He was a flat-out super guy. Distinguished looking grey hair. Tall and thin with an easy smile and easier laugh.
I’d always try to sit next to him because Dick was a vice president at a frozen food manufacturer and always had good engineering stories about process management and green beans. I’m a sucker for logistics and keeping veggies icy, apparently, because I had tons of questions and always was mesmerized about how the shipment to northern Ohio dethawed while the trucker frantically tried to keep the refrigerator running.
I’d pull up a chair and say, “Hey, Dick! How are you?”
He’d smile back at me as I slumped next to him. We’d watch our daughters kick each other and the ball for about 45 minutes and chat.
This went on for about two and a half years.
So far, so good, right?
Each week I’d walk down the sideline. He’d be sitting there, pretending like he wasn’t trying to pull his hair out. Then his miserable look would melt as he’d see me and smile, “Joe! How are you?” I’d reply, “Hey, Dick! Mind if I join you?”
Of course, he never minded.
It took the pressure off watching the game.
Our daughters went to the same school. In a big parent money-grab for the Parent-Teacher Organization, semi-annual teacher conferences dumped into the library, where a huge Scholastic Book Fair sucked money out of our checkbooks.
It was expected that you’d buy your kid a book after the conference.
Dick and his wife, Margie happened to be in the book fair when Cheryl and I finished meeting with the teacher. As always, our daughter had a fine conference and we were doing our duty by buying her a book.
The line for the cash register was a mile long. I thought about heading to Barnes & Noble to buy our book. Who’d know? My daughter wouldn’t have a clue where it came from.
I was just telling Cheryl that we should ditch the fair when I saw the Smiths.
“Hey, Dick!” I said, waving. My mood changed immediately. Now I could stand in line for a long time if Dick was there. We’d just talk frozen food, sports, or whatever.
The four of us chatted for about a half hour before we finally made the front of the line. Dick motioned to Margie.
“Can you hand me the checkbook?”
“Sure,” she said, rummaging through her purse.
She pulled out the checkbook. Dick opened it and took a pen from his pocket.
Because I love checkbook art, I leaned in to see what print the Smiths were sporting and turned white.
Across the top of the checkbook it said Mark and Margaret Smith.
….I know now…..
I can’t believe he’d kept smiling at me for two and a half years…..
lol. Whoops.
That’s an awful long time to let you call him the wrong name. How did you ever assume that his name was Dick?
Apparently because thinking his name was “Steve” would have been too easy. My wife has asked the same question 100 times. No clue.
Great Post, Average Di… i mean Joe.. Lol.
It sounds even worse in this context.
Did you apologize to the guy profusely, or just brush it off?
In all seriousness..
I don’t miss writing checks at all..
Online Banking is one of the greatest things ever, as far as I am concerned 🙂
In some ways, Jefferson, I’m like you. I hate waiting in line behind someone with checks. I just love the art like I still dig album covers.
I brushed it off. The next year our daughters were on separate soccer teams and in different classes. From then on I said, “Hey, Mark!” I was always surprised he didn’t answer, “Hey, asshole!”
HA!
It’s got to be the “cuh” sound at the end of each name. I could see how you mixed it up.
I sat beside another flute player in high school band for 4 years. She called me Camaro…for 4 years. I didn’t have the heart to correct her. I can relate to Dick…er…Mark.
I had a client who called me “Joel.” Even in notes he’d write, “Dear Joel,” even though his statement had JOE on it. I’d write back, “you know, Mike, people ask me that all the time….they’ll say, “hey, JOE, what CDs are best these days?” Then he’d write back….wait for it….”Thanks, Joel!”
Perhaps it was an unfinished exclamation point?
Like…Joe| ?
Kamara,
FYI – I just went to see how “you screwed up your 20’s with multiple credit cards”, but wordpress is telling me your blog is marked private.
Rob, she took her blog offline a few months ago. Sorry for the broken link!
You and I have a mutual friend who called you Joel quite a bit too…his name rhymed with Stan Sozdel.
Stan called me that? I never noticed. Just thought it was the way he talked….
Yeah, totally similar ending. That’s why….thanks for having my back!
Camaro! At least it’s a fun car. Hopefully she meant the Camaro AFTER the redesign. That’s the awesome one.
That is a hilarious story. I am kind of surprised that his wife never corrected you just by calling him by his real name while the 4 of you were talking together. Too funny!!
Good point! I’ve done that before…just to smooth it over. Nope. That would have made it much easier and less painful later. Maybe they thought it was just my sense of humor to insult people whenever I see them. “Hey, Dick!”
I think your intent to completely insult him every time you saw him may have made more sense if his last name was Head….
…seriously, folks, she’s here all week! Tip your waitstaff! Christa, you crack me up.
I get called Dick all the time. I think it’s a common mistake 😉
Michelle/Dick…kind of roll off the tongue the same! Easy to understand the error….
I miss my Star Wars checks. Later I had Humane Society checks with puppies nd kitties, and bunnies, but my (free) Star Wars checks were my favorites.
I miss checks because writing out how much I was paying made me pay more attention to what I was spending, vs just swiping my card.
That’s a huge upside of checks. Sometimes I think my kids think we have money just cause we have some plastic. Magic!
Haha! I had a similar thing happen to me. A friend of mine, for the first 3 months he knew me called me Andrew. At first I thought he was joking with me but slowly realized that he had no clue my name was not Andrew. One day I sat him down, and told him what my name was. To this day we still laugh about it.
Do you still talk to Mark by any chance?
No. I was a little awkward around him after that…but mostly we didn’t talk because our daughters had separate teachers and played for different teams. But I did make sure and call him Mark from then on.
OMG. I did not expect that! That is soo funny. Did you say something to him? Or did you continue to call him Dick? Hopefully he didn’t think it was an insult, haha.
Call me a dinosaur who still uses checks to pay bills.
That’s a great story, Joe. Or should I call Mac?
I am laughing my way out of this post and taking it to my weekly digest.
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Oops, how embarrassing! My first thought was, “Maybe his ‘official’ first name is Mark, but everyone calls him Dick?” You know, some people go by the middle names or childhood nicknames or whatever?
I wish that was the case, Paula, but no…I just somehow was sure his name was Dick.