The writing was on the wall, er...sign-in sheet

I am all for budgets.  Keeping track of your money is important.  Doing sums to figure out financial footwork is completely acceptable.  However....there are certain places not to finalize your budget.  Like at the bank.  On the sign-in sheet.  For all to see. 

Especially when you can't add.  Or subtract. 

Today, I went to the bank.  It was payday and I am always excited to go deposit my check.  When I got to the beginning of the line, I stopped to sign the back of my check and to sign the "sign-in" sheet they have on a little podium. 

This is where my day became awesome.  Here is what I saw:

I just had to take a picture.  (Which by the way, I didn't take a picture at first because I was much too afraid that taking a snapshot of a sign in sheet at a bank must violate several Federal laws.  So I went back and pretended to text someone while I took this picture.  I half expected to hear sirens and see a swarm of SWAT members coming at me afterwards. I kept glancing around for someone to stop me and I tried to think of a believeable thing to say if approached - like "I am doing this so as to prove a breach in your security, of which your presence disproves my theory. I promise I am a good person, I have a Citation Award from AWANA!!!"

Fortunately, so far I haven't gotten any menacing calls from the Department of National Security.  All I can say is that we are not as safe as we thought - I can take a picture of a sign-in sheet at a bank!!! )

Aside from the element of danger.....here is why this is so awesome. 

1. This person had no clue how to add/subtract.  In fact, they tried to do both at the same time.  They took the number $5,800 and the number $1,800 and added the two "8's" and subtracted the "1" from the "5" with an answer of $4,600.   I sincerely hope this person was not a math teacher....or an accountant. 

2. This person gave themselves tick marks on the edge of their "sums" (if you can call poorly calculated numbers "sums").  I don't know if the tick marks were strikes for poorly done math or points for what they thought was good budgeting. 

3. Their last comma that separated their final number of "$3,400"  was so large that it commaed both the number AND the dollar sign.(Of course, their figure was once again off by $100 if they were trying to add...and we won't even try to fathom what math book taught them their math rules if  they were in fact trying to subtract.)

What an inspiration of dismal degrees.  This person had no shame and wrote their numbers for the world to see.   I just hope they weren't trying to figure out if they had enough money to buy a car or something...for they may find when they get there that the math was a little off. 

I believe I will start doing my budget on sign-in sheets.  You can never have enough accountablility.