Swirling Thoughts #121 - organization 101

Collections is an art form (or “boost your receivables – send kids”)
On the first of each month Rosie is escorted home by one of the children of the woman who runs her saharon (after-school program). They will gently remind me it’s the beginning of the new month and I will trip over myself running for my checkbook.

Chekim (checks – as in, ‘when my husband is not here, I seem to write a lot of checks – if I can remember where I put the checkbook’)
צ 'קים In Hebrew – that apostrophe (a chupchik) lets the tzadik (normally a ‘tz’ sound) sound like a ‘ch’ (as in choo choo). This I learned in ulpan along with a whole host of banking terminology. There was probably an implied message in the lesson– something along the lines of: plan to spend lots of time in the bank – but it didn’t register.

The first time our checks ran out I asked Bob, who do we call to get more checks?
No one.
Huh?
We have to go to the bank to order more checks.
That’s strange.

And so I went. To the next town over. The bank is located in the mercaz (center) which is a beautiful and centrally located little courtyard which you can’t see from the street. I sent Becky and Rosie to play in the park and I went in to order chekim.

A few weeks later I told Bob we should really pick up our mail – probably our box of checks is taking up the whole post box. Except that he had just gotten the mail. No checks.
Maybe they got lost in the mail?
Maybe we should call the bank to see when they were sent out.
Maybe we should just go back to the bank.

And so Bob went.
What took you so long?
Huh?
Your checkim have been sitting here in the bank for weeks.

Man jobs
Bob left me with a few tasks this week. One was to fix the car (a minor transmission fluid leak). Another was to get the lights working. Still another was to get the motorized backdoor triss fixed. What he didn’t leave me were checkim. I take that back. He left me one. I used it to pay the car guy.

There was a pithy email exchange this afternoon along the lines of ‘why did you not procure more checks?’ and the response ‘when I took the checkbook out of your junk drawer it was all crumpled up – it felt like it had a lot of checks.’

As I searched for a clever comeback there was a knock at my door. Rosie. And a little Israeli boy not much bigger than Rosie. Speaking just one word of English.

“Check?”