ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Yesterday I cashed a $33,542 check for a customer, which blows my previous high score out of the water. My previous biggest check was a $24,000 investment check from the Cayman Islands that I cashed last year. It was hell to get checked out, too. This one was a check from the State of Kansas, and the customer was a very fat middle aged lady with some serious five o’clock shadow. “The other place wanted 6%,” she told me, “which wasn’t a problem but they couldn’t get it for me until tomorrow. Can you get it today?”

We never keep that kind of money just sitting around the store, but for this opportunity, yeah, I sure as shit would find a way to get it there today. I cashed out about $11,000 of it right away and gave her a voucher for the remaining $20 grand. She wasn’t worried about it, either. Would ma’am like me to wait for the other customers to leave before counting out her big dimp? No, she wanted it ASAP. Would ma’am like an envelope? No, the pocket of her sweatpants was fine. “Well, that’s LIKE TWELVE THOUSAND of it, and so my other TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS will get here right at 5 O’CLOCK SHARP, right?” she said loudly before leaving. The customers in the lobby perked up. Yes, we’d have it sometime during the afternoon, ma’am, I told her, as soon as it arrives by ARMED GUARD from the ARMORED TRUCK. BY THE WAY THOSE PEOPLE HAVE GUNS YOU KNOW AND THEY SHOOT TO KILL.

My boss came by the store to have a look at the check, and when she and her husband came back later to pick up the rest of the money, he and I had been sitting around discussing the 60 Minutes episode about avian flu and how we believe it will seriously disappoint the media when it fails to kill us all down to the last man. I told him as I went up front, if I didn’t make it back it was probably because this filthy lady had given me the bird flu. “She really needs a shave,” I added. This news motivated him to come up to the front, ostensibly to watch me count the money, but really to check out her beard. When she stuck her $20 thousand in her pocket and waddled out to her Chevy Astro, I coughed a little and we all looked at each other, startled by how much worse her odor had become in the two hours since she last left.

“What do you think they’re going to spend it on?” our trainee from corporate IT ventured.

“I hope they buy a big fucking bar of soap,” said my boss.