Changing fortunes

Today has been a messed-up day. Yesterday George Soros, billionaire and favorite boogieman of the Party of Trump, received a pipe bomb in his mailbox. This morning additional pipe bombs were intercepted on their way to Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama - and then, in the middle of the morning broadcast, the CNN New York offices were evacuated because the, too, had received a bomb in the mail. Former Attorney General Eric Holder - sent to an incorrect address, and returned to the sending address of Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Representative Maxine Waters - two bombs for her; Joe Biden - well, no bomb yet, but a strong suspicion that there's a bomb already in the mail for him.

I don't want to talk about that.

I'm about to run out of space in my check register, which came free with my checkbook refills. Whenever I run low on checks, I automatically get a new set of checks, I believe four checkbook refills (each with fifty checks) and a new check register. In the past this system worked fine. I usually had check registers that went unused, though what I did with them I'm not sure.

Right now I have quick access to five check registers. The oldest I used for eight years, from September 2004 to March 2012, and it has records of three hundred and twenty-six checks. I didn't buy my house until 2006, so there weren't as many monthly bills from 2004 to 2006, but this still works out to an average of about forty checks a year. (I believe I was also writing a lot of checks during this period from a separate account with a credit union.) The next register covers just two years, from March 2012 to July 2014, and three hundred and forty-five checks. The one after that also covers two years, July 2014 through March 2016, but only has records of one hundred and ninety-three checks; by this time I was increasingly embracing online payments, and writing fewer physical checks - but each payment was duly noted in the check register. The next register spans a single year, March 2016 to August 2017, and only ninety-seven checks. The current one covers August 2017 to the present, and so far has records of thirty-six checks.

Which brings us to the sixth register. I needed a new one, and none of the big box office supply stores stock anything quite so downscale. Neither does Walmart. I can order them online - three from OfficeMax/Office Depot for $3.99, or a pack of ten from Walmart (or Amazon) for $4.99. Do I really need that many, all with the same three year-at-a-glance calendars on the back?

My mom rummaged through some stuff and found an old check register I could use. Very old. The three year-at-a-glance calendars on the back are 1990, 1991, and 1992...which, in a bizarre coincidence, correspond exactly to the calendars for 2018, 2019, and 2020. So, with this twenty-eight-year-old check register, I should be set for a while - or the next twenty-five checks or so.

We'll see what madness tomorrow brings.