Les choses est contre nous

The thing I like about stuff going wrong is the sheer quality of imagination required by those things to go wrong in such novel, yet logical, ways. New readers, I refer you to the keys in the peg basket story which is in here somewhere but my search facility won't turn it up. Ah here it is.

So yesterday I arrived home from the office with two cheques and yet, later on, I only had one. I was certain I had put them both in the usual place I put pending cheques. Only one was there. I searched under the desk, down cracks at the back of the desk and in all the papers I had tidied off my desk in case I had filed it accidentally. I emailed the office to see if I had dropped it there. I checked in the car. No joy.

So, resigned to having to ask for a re-issue, I did what all sensible men would do in the same situation and went to the pub.

On returning my lost cheque was on my desk. It had been folded in four and unfolded again. Curious. But there it was.

Embracing Mrs T I asked where she had found my cheque. In the pile of paper for recycling I put on top of the bookcase each day, it turns out.

I went back to the cheque. How had I folded it and put it, and it alone, in a recycling pile? I turned it over in my hand and on the back, in my hand-writing, were two words:

STEPHEN
LIVER

Attenders at yesterday's Quiet Day will be a little ahead of the rest of you now but here's the back story.

Stephen, a guest at the Quiet Day, had been to the butchers before arriving and came to the door brandishing a bag of liver and asking to borrow fridge space. If you wish to go and reflect on the weirdest item anyone has ever brought to a quiet day please feel free to do so. See you in a few minutes.

Welcome back. So I used a fridge magnet and a piece of scrap paper to put a note on the fridge door. When Stephen left, liver in hand, I folded up the note and put it in the recycling pile. QED.

I regaled Mrs T with this story and the outcome of my substantial detective work and all she could say was that she knew me keeping cheques so close to my scrap paper pile would cause a problem some day. She knew. She hadn't ever said, but she knew.

Relationship advice number 267. A woman's job is not to say I told you so. A man's job is.

Practical advice number 456b. Don't keep uncashed cheques near the scrap paper pile.

I think I may be turning into Tim Dowling. Google him. It'll be worth it.

I will leave the writing on the back of the cheque and imagine the conversation at the bank.