"Is Michael there?"

That's me.

"This is Damon from the bank. I approved the check you deposited this morning for $107,000."

Yeah?

"I just heard from the district office. Unfortunately..."

(Uh oh.)

"...the check was over my limit, and I have to put a five-day hold on it. The funds will be available on the twenty-seventh. I wanted to let you know before you tried to write checks on that money."

Yeah, that was sort of the point. It's not as if I haven't made bigger deposits without any trouble. You phoned the maker's bank to be sure the funds were in the account.

"Right. And they are there. There's no problem with the check itself. It's just that I don't have the authority to approve it. What I can do is have my manager approve it when he comes in Monday. That way you won't have to wait the full five days."

(Cough.)

"I'm sorry about this. You're a good customer."

So the funds will be released Monday?

"Monday or Tuesday."

Can you call me when I can mail out all these checks I'm writing?

"Would you like me to do that?"

Please.

"I'll call you. And again, I'm..."

Sorry.

This conversation not only let all the air out of my balloon, but it also ended my day. I couldn't pick up a pen to write more unfunded checks after that. I didn't even call the Boss to give him the bad news. I just sort of melted into my chair and pulled a blanket over me. Resolved myself into a dew. Remembered how badly I need to sleep.