MORTIMER!!!!!!!

Yes.  I'm ready to be sent right into the looney bin.  My office ghost acted up on me again this afternoon.  My office ghost has been awfully noisy and mischievous lately. Today was another weird trip.

San Mateo Charlie, a colleague of mine,  came up to personally deliver some company workers'  compensation insurance checks to me this afternoon that I handle.  It's not uncommon for him to hand me over $75,000 - $100,000 per visit.  I track this and apply the WC premium for each employer.

Anyway...... after he dropped off the checks and left I began to process them.  I have my set routine.  I scan, enter, obtain verification signatures, blah, blah, blah, blah, until I have the set of records I need in place.  When complete, I set the checks in a specific place so I can make the bank deposit.

Today I was doing my set routine until I got to the last workers' compensation premium check.  I turned to my right to reach for the other checks that I had already processed and they were gone.

I freaked.

Wait.  Where did they go?  I did not leave my office.  Nobody was IN my office.  How could something like that disappear?  I began to tear through the garbage, outgoing mail, tracing my steps and turning filing cabinets upside down trying to figure out where the checks went!!!!  they were JUST THERE.  In front of my EYES.  Am I going batshit crazy?????

I called San Mateo Charlie in tears saying that I lost $100,000 worth of checks.  I've never lost checks in my life and I've been doing my job for 27 years.

Just as San Mateo Charlie would do, he tried to talk me down from the ledge.  He's so practical and German.  I retraced my steps three times over with him whilst on my cell phone.  Garbage.  Check.  Recycling, check.  Behind my desk.  Check. Under today's mail.  Check.  Recently opened files.  Check.  I went to my secretary's office to scour her area although I was not near there. 

I was upset and realized there was nothing I could do at this point but to go home, get a good night's rest, and come back in the morning to resume the search.  It's dark at 6:30 in the evening.  I began to make 'rounds to turn off all the lights and to lock up.

That's when I went back to my office to turn off all remaining lights only to see the missing checks I was looking for directly under my right computer monitor in plain view where I always place them after processing.  I swear they were not there 1 minute ago.

Maybe I should START drinking on the job.

Granted, my office was built in 1886 and has a known history of harboring ghosts.  Still, I don't like to be the subject of their practical jokes.