My Dog Ate Your Rent Check

Joe rents the attic apartment of my house. He's very prompt in delivering his rent check to my door on the 1st of the month. So this morning when I was preparing the bank deposit I realized that I didn't have Joe's rent. Being the 3rd of the month I gave Joe a call. "Joe, while I was preparing the bank deposit I realized I don't have your rent check for the month." Joe says "I slid it under the door on the 1st. Maybe the dog ate it". I told Joe that I did remember coming home one evening and seeing chewed up paper on the floor. It was nothing discernible but it was white and envelope-like. Ranger has been known to chew up papers. I thought it was something she pulled out of the trash can in the library or something. I just picked up the scraps without thinking about it and threw them away.

Joe promptly wrote another check for the rent and brought it down.

Before I left to run my errands I found a scrap of the paper on the floor near the piano in the living room. I pulled the little corner and there it was, the remnants of a check, just three of the pre-printed numbers along the bottom of the check, but definitely a check.