Why Hick Is Not Allowed to Handle the Bookkeeping

Hick can do a lot of things, but accurate handling of our finances is not one of them. In fact, he is not allowed access to the checkbook. I rue the day that debit cards became a thing! Sometimes I get receipts. Sometimes I have to resort to interrogation concerning mystery charges as I try to reconcile the checkbook register through the bank's automated phone system. The Pony scoffs. WHO would actually try to balance a checkbook these days? The elderlies, that's who!

Hick writes down his expenditures on scraps of paper. I'm lucky that he has a legal pad to record expenses for the flip houses. I can usually decipher them, and get one at the end of each month, with variable amounts of prodding. Now Hick has the senior apartments to deal with. He's quick to whip out our debit card and Lowe's card to purchase materials. Then he gets reimbursed by the nonprofit agency that operates the apartments. He gives them the receipts. I am left to untangle those expenses from the flip expenses and our household charges.

Hick gave me a note Monday evening, before going to bed. How convenient, avoiding an imminent interrogation.

He tossed it on the table, and said, "I'll pay us in cash, so you don't have to go to the bank this week. And I'll need a check by Friday." Referring to our weekly cash allowance, for spending and squirrelling away in a safe for future bills like insurance and Christmas and incidentals like road gravel and new used trailers. I wasn't sure about the check, because sometimes it's for Mick the Mechanic, or a glass guy, or a roofing guy.

Well. No way was I going to record this in my checkbook register without a deposit slip. I can't trust Hick on amounts. He rounds off, or transposes numbers. Lucky for me, I found the deposit slip tucked inside this folded paper the note was written on. The deposit was actually $2450.06, which was his slightly over $300/month salary, plus expenses for renovating an apartment. Not that anybody could tell from this note. Which you might be marveling over yourself, as I did upon first glance.

Weed check. WEED check??? 

What in the Not-Heaven? Who buys weed with a check? Even in a state where it's legal, as ours is now. Hick can't have weed! He would lose his federal license to sell him most profitable merchandise. Not even weed cream to help his arthritis in his metal plate upper spine and cadaver bone lower spine. What's this about a WEED check? I asked him the next morning.

"WEED check? What are you talking about?"

"Your note. And that is NOT the amount of your deposit."

"Val. It says I need a check. That's the amount for my rent on my storage units for six months. Then the amount that I gave us in our account after I took off the $729.30 for the water heater that busted at the apartments. And the $781.24 is what I still owe us after you give me my rent check. So I'm giving us cash for that, and you won't have to take money out of the bank this week."

"Well. Excuse me for not understanding that from what you've written on your note."

Confused? Welcome to MY world! As the unpaid bookkeeper for Hick's assorted business ventures. At least he's not asking for a check to buy weed.