Good Morning, Fire Island

Tabatha Cottis, who are you?
Are you in need of wheels? Can I help you somehow?
I rode to Freddie's yesterday to deposit a paycheck, and discovered that the balance was somewhat lower than it should have been. Home to check the history. Sure enough, over the past five days, there were three checks which had been cashed out of my account, in amounts of $220, $300, and most recently, $600.
My memory is faulty, to be fair, but surely I would remember something like this.
I called it in. I had no idea that the bank had visual records of every check that they processed... but they pulled up the errant checks and, lo and behold, found that the signatures didn't match the ones on any of my other checks. Not by a long shot.
It seems I have been irresponsible in my disposing of old checks... perhaps I trashed some, and they were recovered. I'll never be sure. But there it was, in front of me:








How surreal to see your name written in someone else's handwriting! Who is this person?
After taking care of the necessary forms, signing affidavits and freezing the account and securing it all tightly, I headed off to the southeast precinct of the PDX police department and sat in one of the cushy leather couches of the waiting room. Finally a burly, gum-chewing officer came out and took my report, smacking away. I rode home in something of a daze. The money will be reimbursed, Tabatha will be investigated. And I will go on with my life, as before. Except I'll take a bit more care of keeping records of my checks from now on.
Which reminds me, I have a date with the fireplace to destroy all my current checks right now. Then off to Powell's.

Big big love, friends.