For your mortgage account ending in XXXX: Thank you for your recent payment of ($ USD) 82,829.72.
I wish. Update:
Dear Valued Customer:
We're writing to let you know you received an Account Alert on 12/06/09 that contained inaccurate information about your mortgage payment. Please disregard the Alert, and accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused.
Some time ago, I mentioned this short story that I couldn't find anywhere, remembered from a long ago schoolbook. More recently, an anonymous poster added that he or she also remembered the story. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had tracked the story down to an issue of the Saturday Evening Post from the 50's. That was going to run me $20-$30. So instead I found the very textbook for sale for $0.76. I ordered it. A week passes. No book. I happen to check my credit card info, and I see my money's been refunded. I ask. Apparently, they got the book and found it in an unsale-able condition. Another setback in my lifelong quest to find this story again. But, another copy of the textbook was available from another seller for the princely sum of $2.10, and now I have it in my hands. To sum up: I googled, I bought, I conquered.
The story is not quite how I remembered it. Nor is it particularly awesome on a re-read, but it does have its moments. I wonder if I read it when I was living in Wisconsin and homesick for California and Mexican food, and that's what made it more memorable. Apart from Taco Bell and a Mexican restaurant that closed after three months, there wasn't an avocado or tortilla within twenty miles of me [the story offers glosses and pronunciation for both of those exotic words] Anyway, for everyone, all two of us, who remembered this story fondly from a schoolbook 30 years ago and can't find it, I offer a copyright-violating treat: ( Collapse )
