Lesson Learned

Recently I was able to learn a great lesson that I thought I would share with everyone.

When you are telling a ninety year old lady how much to write a check for you need to be VERY clear or else you will have the following happen.

1. When I told her the bill was “Two-eighty-five” she did indeed write the check for “Two-eighty-five”, but when she handed me the check I looked at it and realized she had written it for two dollars and eighty-five cents. We were just a couple of zeros off. No big deal right? She was not happy with me at all and let me know that. Off we went to the third check.

2. This time I tried to be as clear as possible. Telling her two-hundred and eighty-five dollars. I even showed her the copy of the bill to make sure we got it right. I did not want to have another lecture. After she wrote the check, which took quite some time, she handed me the check. I almost died when I realized she had written the check this time for $200.85. That’s right we still did not have it right. To make it even better she gave me a bigger lecture this time around. Finger shaking and all! She told me I needed to make sure I spoke correctly when telling someone an amount. She explained to me that in 7th grade she had a class that taught her all of that. She asked me if I knew her 7th grade math teacher that had taught her. Considering that she is in her nineties and am in my twenties I was pretty safe saying, “No. unfortunately I didn’t know him”. On we go to the third check. Third time is the charm right?!


3. Again I told her the bill was for Two-hundred and eight five dollars. She looked at me and said, “And no cents right”? I told her that was correct. She then repeated the amount to me and I showed her the bill again just to make sure we got it right this time and were on the same page. She began writing the third check and as she was writing the check she said the amount out loud (which she said correctly) to make sure she was writing it for the correct amount. I was so happy to finally have it right. She handed me the third check and I looked down at it and it was written out AGAIN for $200.85. After a fifteen minutes process of trying to write out one check and not getting it right I just didn’t have the heart to tell her it was wrong AGAIN. I took the check and off she went not realizing the check still wasn’t right. Three checks and not one of them for the right amount.

Lesson Learned.


P.S. I have had a couple of successful cooking experiences. I made TWO pumpkin pies for our general conference pie tradition. I also made cupcakes. They were from the box but at least I did not forget about them and leave them in the oven. I did take one step back though this weekend. I lost track of how many cups of flour I had put in to the banana bread I was making. When you add too much flour it comes out like rock! NICE and HARD just they way Todd likes it.