Talk about a "senior moment"

I've just got to share this story with you.

OK, I know it's on me, but I have to tell you anyway.

At the end of August, we hired our handy-dandy backhoe operator to come in and do some work out back of the house (to further our landscaping effort since we built my sanctuary).

In mid September, we received the invoice for the job.

I immediately popped a cheque into the mail.

And I've patiently waited for said cheque to clear my account.

But it hasn't cleared.

When October came to a close without the cheque having been negotiated, I figured I'd give him a while longer, remembering past occasions when he seemed to have taken a while to redeem payments.

But as November closes in on us and the cheque still hasn't cleared, I thought I should check in with him if only to confirm that he had in fact received the payment in question.  (Lord knows we shouldn't necessarily trust the mail to always get through.)

So I pull the file to get his phone number.

And there's a copy of the cheque.

Clearly dated 2011-11-21.

Ooops!

September is the ninth month, not the eleventh (that would be November).

What in hell was I thinking back in September when I wrote that cheque?

My call to the gentleman turned into one of sincere apology for the screw-up.

He thought it was quite funny that I was so terribly appalled about the whole situation.

When they got the cheque, his wife said to him, "Oh, Bonnie made a mistake on the date," and simply put it aside until it became payable.  

Nothing to it.

"I never intended for you to have to wait two months for payment," I explained.

"Don't worry about it Bonnie," he said.  "I've waited a lot longer than this for money from some people."

Anyway, call it a "senior moment" or a "brain fart" or whatever, I'm still horrified that it happened.  You can be sure I'll be paying extra special attention whenever I write a cheque now.