By GARRET LEIVA
Community editor
---- — Life is full of things that defy logic: politics, soccer rules and fat free Oreos.
However, it's really hard to see the sense in a ten-cent check.
We've all received the come-on check in the mail. I can't count the number of triple-digit riches sent to me from car dealers, liquidating furniture companies and mortgage banks. To cash these checks will cost you in the long run, as in sky-high interest rates or a visit from Tony "The Knuckles" if you skip a payment.
I'm no Uncle Pennybags, but if you pass checks made to the order of A. Valued Customer you might go directly to jail, do not collect $200.
Normally I shred funny money mailings to line my daughter's hamster cage. These checks might not be worth doody, but at least they can absorb it.
As a Bank of Dad ATM, I often find myself without a cent to my name. Today I'm one signature away from a 10/100 dollars windfall.
Several weeks ago a nondescript envelope arrived in the mailbox. Since the mail was addressed to me, our 8-year-old daughter opened it. Inside was a "Dear-your-name-in-all-capitals" form letter from a big box home improvement store.
"Based on a recent review, we have made a credit adjustment for your account." As opening lines go, I wouldn't call it a Shakespearian effort. However, I did find these words intriguing: "... attached is a check for the adjustment amount."
Sure enough, below the perforated line was a check made out to not only my first and last legal name, but middle initial as well. Not since fourth-grade math or my last paycheck has a decimal point proven such a let down. I've never held ten cents in both contempt and with two hands.
The ancient Romans are thought to have used an early form of check, or praescriptiones. However, I think a ten-cent praescriptione would land you in the Colosseum with the lions. Caesar strikes me as a cash-only ruler or at least 20 lashes for all returned checks.
I have no idea what it costs to cut a ten-cent check; my conservative estimate is at least six figures.
After all, customer service pushed paperwork for the check, a bank authorized it, a printer spit it out on chemical reactive paper and the postal service delivered it on a Friday. The human payroll that had a hand in this minuscule check could eclipse the gross domestic product of Tokelau.
I'm no Warren Buffett, but issuing ten-cent checks seems an odd way to run a railroad — or a big-box home improvement store.
So now I'm faced with a check conundrum: cash or deposit. The impulsive part of me says take that 10/100 dollars and cash it. However, I'd ask the teller for my legal tender in ten 1943 copper pennies. If that seems to defy logic try dunking fat free Oreos in whole milk.
