Front Porch Reflections
Confession Time
This afternoon, I spent nearly two hours trying to balance my business checking account because of Amazon charges I couldn’t identify from early June.
I searched my Amazon account. Nothing.
I checked my payment methods. Nothing.
I searched transactions. Nothing.
I finally called Amazon and spent 45 minutes with the sweetest customer service representative. She patiently searched every charge while I read off dates, amounts, and reference numbers from my bank statement.
After leaving me on hold a couple of times, she was able to tell me what I had purchased.
Books.
Books I had purchased.
Last year.
We were both so confused. Why in the world would Amazon wait an entire year to charge my debit card?
While she tried to solve the mystery, I decided to print last year’s July bank statement to see if I had been charged twice.
The instant the statement opened, I froze.
Yeah, that’s right . . .
I had been balancing last year’s bank statement the entire afternoon.
Not this year’s.
Last year’s.
I interrupted the Amazon representative to tell her what I had discovered. I apologized about twelve times. She cleared her throat and said, “That’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes.” Kudos to her for not bursting out in belly laughter.
Then I hung up.
Ken poked his head into my office with that look on his face. You know the one. Half concern. Half trying not to laugh. He wasn’t, however, successful with the straight-face thing.
He’s still laughing.
After regaining some semblance of composure, I carefully removed all the transactions I had entered in my check register so I could balance my books to the correct statement.
The good news? My 2025 bookkeeping is in excellent shape.
The better news? My 2026 bookkeeping is also in excellent shape.
But somewhere, a very patient Amazon customer service representative has a story to tell at dinner tonight.
And Ken isn’t about to keep this to himself.
— Charlene