Check Fraud

For me, like millions of other college students, money is, well, tight. As time goes on I find it more and more necessary to be able to laugh at my financial situation or I am bound to lose my mind and either start selling my body or planting Benjamin's in my backyard hoping that money tree my parents speak of will start to grow. And this past week's financial who-ha's are certainly humorous.

Last Friday my roommate, Bri, calls me up and tells me ( the only roommate living at our apartment at the time since others have gone home on break while I have been banished to the dungeon for torture via poetry every morning at 9am) that she has forgotten to pay her rent and will I please go into her room and forge a check and drop it off at the office. No problem. When I get home later, Cooper has to pee, per usual, so I run upstairs, grab the check, scribble Briana Hog (long story) on a check and run out with Coop to the office. When I come back there is a note on my bedroom door from roommate #3 (Colleen) that I was rushing too much to see before stating that she has also stopped by and forged a check for Bri. GREAT.

This brings us to the "this shit only happens to me" and "you can't make this up" portion of the program. Apparently when I went home to get my new checks I grabbed the ones from my old checking account, which, surprise, no longer exists. Thus, surprise! and lucky for me! all my bills for January bounced. And what could be more calming for a busy student living paycheck to paycheck than realizing not only does she have to spend the time and aggravation to sit on hold to talk to (insert raspy fat secretary voice here) customer service representatives who couldn't give a flying rat's ass about my dilemma but doing so while wondering where all those service charges for bounced checks are going to come from. Time to throw in the towel and start stripping.

Anyways, so I go down to the rent office to explain my situation to our own slightly plump secretary who looks up our account and tells me, "Hmm. This is odd. Your rent is all paid for this month for that apartment." And then it dawns on me. Bri paid twice. Now I am very quickly trying to think of a scapegoat story to prevent all three of us from becoming cellmates (I am very partial to my own room, thank you) for check fraud and slightly plump is looking more plump as she stares me down suspiciously for an explanation until I finally burst out with, "Oh, you know, one of my roommates isn't really all there (making the spinning motion with my finger next to the side of my head that denotes craziness), she may have paid her rent twice this month, she's pretty forgetful, side effect of being dropped as a baby I think, plus she's blonde." REALLY plump gives me a "Uhuhhh" nod and rolls her eyes a little before accepting my new check.

Moral of the story, be very careful when writing checks. Please obey all federal laws and write only from accounts that actual exist. Your story may not be as funny as mine; you may actually end up in jail with a biker "chick" cellmate named Bertha.

Also, Bri is actually a highly intelligent doctoral student, who, although she is actually blonde, she is more of the Elle Woods type who kicks ass and takes names.