We’re old school …. well, at least my husband is. There are some things he simply insists on doing the old-fashioned way. One of those things is paying bills. Most people I know use online banking; it’s quick, easy and from what I’ve heard, safe. My husband Bill (how appropriate) is extremely reluctant to put his faith in online financial transactions. Oh, he’ll place orders online but that’s different, he says.
So how do we pay our bills? By writing checks by hand and maintaining a record in the checkbook register. That was always Bill’s job until a few years ago when he underwent emergency surgery after falling off a ladder. While he was in the hospital and rehab, I took over the task of paying the bills and I still do it.
I don’t mind, really, but sometimes the bills all seem to come at the same time and it turns into a project. One thing that saves time is all bills now come with a return payment envelope; no more hunting through the rolltop desk in search of my own envelopes. But everyone once in a while we’ll get that one rogue bill with no return envelope. There I am, ensconced at my desk, pen and a fresh cup of coffee at the ready and I have to stop what I’m doing to dig around for an envelope. That really burns my cookies.
The biggest offenders are the dentist and the gardener. Why? Human error. Both are small businesses set up in the same fashion: there’s one person who manually prepares the invoices for mailing. Sometimes they remember to include a return envelope, sometimes they don’t. And when they do remember, it’s alway one of those smaller envelopes, not the letter size. Funny, they never forget to bill me; I wonder if it would be ok if sometimes I remember to pay them and sometimes I don’t. I’m only human, after all. No, I doubt that would fly.
Is it a coincidence that both the dentist and the gardener mail out a typed invoice on a standard 8 ½ “ x 11” sheet of paper which has no perforated line at the top or the bottom? That’s the line that easily allows me to separate the portion of the invoice that gets returned with my check from the portion that I keep for our records. No perforated line means I have to use scissors to separate the two parts of the invoice or, if I don’t feel like getting up, repeatedly fold one section of the invoice in the same place until there’s a sufficient crease to neatly tear the the invoice into two sections. Mostly neatly; sometimes it looks like I used my teeth, which seems quite fitting for the dentist’s invoice.
And another thing. I think all return envelopes should be prepaid with no postage required on my part. I mean, let’s get real. Isn’t it enough that I’m sending these businesses my money? Now I have to affix a postage stamp. I have been given the privilege of paying to send them my money. Let that sink in. Not only am I giving them my money – I’m paying to do so.
And then we still have to take all our envelopes to the post office!
That, my friends, is “The Old B.O.H.I.C.A.” – Bend Over; Here It Comes Again.
You know, I really need to have another serious conversation with Bill about online banking.
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