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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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December 2005 / January 2006 Contest Results |
My Son The
Bookkeeper
By Vince Johnson
Auburn, CA
My father worried
about my future. He kept asking me if I knew where I was going. "What
profession will surrender to your wit?"
An old trick used by fathers in his generation was to hand a boy a tool
like a paintbrush or a shovel and see what he'd do with it. When I was
eight Dad handed me a hammer. "Carpentry is a fine profession," he told
me.
But I had heard there was gold inside rocks. It took me all day to take
that hammer and break up every rock in the back yard. I was starting in
on the foundation of the house when Dad, although commending my zeal,
took back the hammer. "Not carpentry," he said.
Next, Dad handed me a shovel to see what I would do. I promptly set out
to undermine the house. Encouraged by my demonstration of talent for
civil engineering, he hustled down to the library and got me some books
on tunnel digging.
"Son," he prophesied, "one of these days they're going to dig a tunnel
under the English Channel, and you could be just the little digger to do
it."
This dream failed when I ran into the tunnel digger's eternal
problem -- what to do with all the dirt you dig out. A moment's thought
presented the usual solution. I would dig another hole. This is what
drives tunnel diggers mad.
Next Dad noted my fascination with games involving numbers -- games like
pool, which is played with numbered balls, and poker, which is played
with numbered cards. Oho! Perhaps my future lay in the pure science of
numbers. Numerology was hot in those days. You could figure out anything
with numbers, even the future.
“That’s it,” he enthused. "You’re a born bookkeeper!"
He taught me how columns of figures added up in terrible logic to The
Bottom Line. He told me stories about the high drama of bookkeeping. It
seems an embezzler got caught with his books $310,000 short. "Where are
your substantiating documents?" the police asked him. When he couldn’t
produce any receipts, it was sayonara, baby. Cops love to ask for
substantiating documents. They nail everybody with that one.
The problem was I never could see the use of Dad's instruction. What I
wanted to know was, where he got all those figures he was teaching me to
add up.
"Oh, that’s another story," he said. "Now you’re talking about paper
trails, which is accounting. You don’t want to know all that."
I knew one thing — I didn't want anything to do with a profession that
required substantiating documents every time you turned around. If Dad
had seen those love notes I stuffed in Jean West’s inkwell he would have
known I was no bookkeeper and my talent lay in writing flaming prose.
Years later, raising a family, I finally saw the reason for bookkeeping.
It is used to find out where the money went.
Today, I know how embezzlers get started. First they get impatient with
documenting everything. They devise a scheme to eliminate those
troublesome documents, so they can engage in dynamic executive action.
But eventually all that dynamic executive action comes under the
auditor’s eye. The first thing auditors always do is start rummaging
around looking for those blasted substantiating documents. It is just
maddening!
Years later when my first wife overdrew our checking account, I leaped
into action to demonstrate my profound knowledge of bookkeeping.
"Listen, Bubblehead," I snapped, "according to my infallible system of
checks and balances, we had plenty of money in the bank. What happened to
it?"
"Household expenses," she replied airily.
I gave her my best Perry Mason smile and thundered out the killer
question: "Where are your substantiating documents?" I sat back and
waited for her to collapse and admit everything.
"I don't need any documents, Mr. Accountant," she replied, "so you can
just take that infallible system of yours and stick it up your nose."
This sweet reason led me away from a life devoted to numbers and into
the slothful life of writing, where I don’t always have to be rummaging
around looking for a bunch of substantiating documents.
Hah! If I need
any documents I just write ‘em up.
http://www.vincejohnson.net
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