The Case of the Missing Rent

I'm a creature of habit. When the mail comes, I usually sort it by tenant (there are 10 apartments in this old Victorian house, including my landlord's). I usually put the monthly rent on top of all the other mail my landlord accumulates.

I did this Sunday night. He doesn't pick up his mail every day. But last night I checked downstairs and the envelope I put the check in was gone.

Tuesday afternoon my cellphone rang. It was my landlord.

"It's the third of the month. You gonna drop by with the rent?"

I was confused.

"I dropped it downstairs along with all your other mail the other night. You didn't pick it up?"

"No, it's not here."

I went downstairs. I thought it might've slipped behind the table where I drop all the mail after I sort it. It wasn't there.

Well that just sucked. Now I had to write another rent check and hand it to my landlord. He, meanwhile, was panicking that one of the other tenants may have snatched it and deposited my rent check.

So I called my bank. Luckily, the missing check hasn't been presented anywhere. I put a stop payment on it. My landlord is reimbursing me for the stop payment.

I'm convinced the check is sitting on his countertop, wedged in between his cable bills and the weekly Shaw's flyer. He'll probably find it next week.