Well, it’s July and that must mean it’s time for Helly’s auto insurance to get cancelled! This happens every July (see?) even though I pay my premiums on time and haven’t had a speeding ticket since 1991. I’m very good at figuring out ways to do impossible things like that. I never did figure out what happened last year, what with Allstate saying the cancellation notice, postmarked 9 days after THEIR posting date for my payment, must have crossed in the mail with my check. Whatever. I lacked the energy to even pursue it, so I moved on, insured.

This time, it was partly my fault although I can’t quite believe how the rest of the scenario unfolded. My bill-paying system works like this: when I’m ready to cut checks, all the invoices are alphabetized (no, really! Just like my fridge!), I enter the date, change the few amounts that fluctuate, print the checks, make copies of each page of checks which I staple to the “for your records” portion of the invoices relating to that page of checks and then file the sets chronologically. See, I’ve tried to make it fairly difficult for me to mess up, not that you’d ever guess it from the frequency with which creditors and vendors get miffed at me. I pull out the June pages and find a check to Allstate for $100, well over the minimum due. I pull my bank statement and find that said check cleared, in the amount of $100, nearly two weeks before the “look out, Missy, you’re in trouble!” date. What the hell?

I telephone Allstate, discuss, fax piece of bank statement showing cleared check, reference number, transaction number, etc.

Apparently (this is the my-fault piece) when I was stuffing envelopes I swapped two checks, AllState, which comes right after AllSouth Robertson, with each other. I mailed $100 to the trash company and $39 to AllState. Okay, my bad - but both companies cashed those checks. And their respective banks and my bank honored all phases of both transactions, when neither endorsement matched the payee. Is it any wonder how rampant identity theft is perpetrated, when you can apparently cash a check made out to anyone for anything in any amount if you have that check in your possession? AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

It's hard to imagine, because I get an unbelievable rash of crap if I'm on the other end of that scenario. Let me TRY, just TRY, to deposit a check into The Boss's account that someone made out to his popularly known, used-every-day nickname, instead of his actual given name (that no one ever calls him) and I get grilled. I get sent to the branch manager. I get fingerprinted. The Boss is voice-printed via cellphone. We get summoned to the GBI to prove our intentions were honorable. Okay, so maybe not that last one, but it's only a matter of time, trust me.

Still, on the plus side, our sanitation is paid up for a year. I blame it on a subconscious fear that I might someday find myself in the same situation as my garbologically-impaired neighbor.