My Wife's Check-Book

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

CYNTHIA tells me that the difficulties I endure in trying to understand her address-book are as nothing compared to the struggles she undergoes in trying to balance my check-book every month.

To me the explanation is obvious, but I shall postpone stating it. Cynthia, being very anxious to save me trouble, kindly suggested that she should make out all the checks for housekeeping expenses, and should even go over my check-book herself, to see that it agreed with the bank. In fact, there was nothing I should have to do but sign my name on the dotted line. Even this slight exertion Cynthia offered to spare me; for she has improved the shining hours she spends sitting at the telephone, while the operator gives her the wrong number, by toying with a pencil and paper, till she has attained a startling proficiency in reproducing my bold signature. When I describe to her the years in prison toward which her clever forgery will inevitably lead if practised in my checkbook, she merely tells me not to be absurd, as the president of the bank would understand at once that she was not committing a crime, but only saving me trouble — besides which, no one would find out about it, anyway.

The first of every month there is always just a little question of how much trouble I really am saved. My wife brings her own check-book and mine into my study, and ‘goes over them’ while I am trying to read. When Cynthia does sums, she looks as if she were playing the piano or manipulating the typewriter.

‘This is the only certain way of doing addition,’ she assures me; ‘for, although I am practically certain that 6 and 5 are 11, and not 13, I feel that I should not be doing right if I failed to prove it by ten-finger exercises. Let me see,’ she begins, thinking out loud, ‘how much out were my accounts in April? I always write down “A. W.” for “all wrong,” after going over my returned checks, just as you put “ O. K.” on yours, and I am starting May with $79.13 more than the bank gives me.’

‘Well, you must find where the mistake is,’ I begin; but she interrupts impatiently, ‘Oh, no! I have learned by experience that the bank always wins, just as it does at Monte Carlo, and that saves a lot of trouble. So I just subtract $79.13 from $57.00 (which is what the bank says I have), and that leaves — Oh, goodness! I’ve got to do it by algebra, because there’s a minus quantity! ’

Very firmly I take Cynthia’s pen out of her hand and go back over her personal expenditures. ‘Look here!’ I presently exclaim. ‘ Why does the number of this check suddenly jump from 29 to 375?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Cynthia rejoins lightly. ‘But the numbers don’t matter; they are just for one’s own convenience, and you were probably talking to me while I was numbering the check.’

‘Well, let’s look at the bill you paid with that check,’ I suggest. ‘We may find one of the keys to the mystery.’

But it only made her surplus more unaccountable; for she had paid a bill of $3.75 with a check for $29, and instead of numbering her check 29 had recorded it as No. 375!

‘How dishonest of that Chinese laundry not to have told me of the mistake! The Oriental’s code, I suppose,’ was Cynthia’s only comment as I continued my search for similar slips of her pen* A little later, I discovered that she had entered the receipt of a small dividend on April 15, remembering that that was the date it was due, but forgetting that the company had suspended payment six months before. But even this financial liability was deftly converted into a mental asset.

‘Don’t you think it was wonderful that I should remember the date that dividend was due, and enter the right amount without even receiving the check?’ she inquired, piqued by my failure to express admiration. And in view of the checks she had received and had neglected to enter, I could only agree that it was, indeed, wonderful.

One of my wife’s strange customs is to write little letters to herself on the margins of her stubs — all, I feel sure, perfectly unintelligible even to the recipient of the letters. They run something like this: ‘Mem. Paid J. N. $2.00 too much, and she owed me $7.30 already. Take notice May 1st’; and ‘Don’t forget to pay L. B. $4.50 for the m’s and t’s she got me.’ Then, cramped into almost illegible characters, came the announcement, ‘$75.00 of this is Children’s Hospital money collected from friends. Not to be spent for my personal expenses unless promptly returned.’

Cynthia also has a very confusing system, when making out checks to tradesmen in my book, of entering their names either by initials, or first names, or even a playful nickname. For example, Little & Pettingle, who sell us provisions, are entered as ‘Little Pet.’ ‘I. M. $87.50’ is supposed to tell me at once that the iceman’s bill was surpassed only by the plumber’s, which is entered as ‘Plum. $91.00.’ Our son’s teacher, who happens to be an old friend of ours, with a Dr. before his name and a great many initials after it, receives a sum fit for a king’s ransom, under the laconic entry of ‘Billy’s bill’; while my dentist, with whom — in spite of spasmodic familiarity — my relations are somewhat strained, is merely referred to as ‘Edgar.’ ‘To Edgar, for balancing himself on a crowbar on an exposed nerve, $175.00’ was the last cryptic reference to this inquisitor, whose pockets we fill with gold in exchange for his having performed the same office on the family molars.

But the thing that throws out both Cynthia’s and my accounts more than anything else is the inadvertent signing of her name on the checks for household bills in my check-book. When the day of reckoning comes, it is a day of rejoicing for me and of sorrowful perplexity for Cynthia; for while my balance looms magnificently large, my wife, who has been scrupulously economical for the last month, receives a courteous note from the bank, informing her that she has overdrawn her account, and will she please, at her earliest convenience, etc., etc. Even in her consternation she remembers to point out to me that the mistake must be a very frequent one, inasmuch as a printed form was used to convey the sad news. But when the explanation of her having signed her name to my checks is discovered, Cynthia’s triumph of innocence knows no bounds. ‘Was there ever anything so stupid as that old bank!’ she exclaims. ‘Would n’t you really think that, after all these months, they would know that my checks are pink and yours are green, even if the signature is wrong! What’s the good of having different-colored checks at all, except to prevent just such things as this happening? And what is n’t the bank’s fault is really yours, Algernon,’ she continues, ‘because, whenever I come into your study to make out checks, you begin to read aloud to me, and then of course I make mistakes. I remember perfectly that, while I was signing my name to the meat bill, you were reading to me about some bill that Borah was hoping to get Harding to sign; and I remember thinking that I must n’t sign Harding’s name by mistake, so I signed my own, which was really far more disastrous for me.’

Cynthia has a positive genius for proving that her errors are never really hers, but always other people’s; and I generally end by agreeing with her that the bank and I should share the blame. ‘But your methods are rather sketchy,’ I venture to suggest. To which she replies imperturbably, ‘ Oh, yes, I often call my check-book my sketch-book by mistake’; and she regards that as an unanswerable last word.

But to go back to my own first word: the reason that Cynthia finds my checkbook so difficult to make out is a very simple one — she makes it out!