It's not what you think; it's my checkbook. I did a stupid thing, the undoing of which is making me feel, well, stupid.

I can attempt a lame defense: I was moving at the time, I didn't have a blank check register, and I just did what anyone else would do under the circumstances. When I ran out of room in the "regular" part of my check register, I started entering checking transactions in the savings part.

Now, that's not the big deal. The big deal is that I made some mistakes when I began the new register, which I finally got at the bank. Instead of picking up where I'd left off, I transcribed the uncleared items into the new register, along with about a page of cleared items. I thought this would eliminate the need to refer to the full register when I next balanced my checkbook.

I balance my checkbook once a month. A lot can happen in that time.

My first attempt to reconcile the new register showed that I had $200 less than the bank said I should. Well, has everything cleared? I think so. Did I accidentally subtract things twice? I had no way to really know. The old register was in a very full paper bag marked "TBF" (to be filed, nifty shorthand for a decidedly un-nifty task).

My second attempt was no more successful, though I did come up with some newer, prettier numbers.

There was nothing else for it but to dig up the former register. There it is, I thought, shuffling through the bottom of the bag. The register is smaller and weightier than a sheet of paper, so rooting in the bottom made sense, at least as far as physics is concerned.

I found it! Good girl, I told myself. Then I looked at the date: June 2006. Okay, that's the old register BEFORE the old register. Back to foraging.

I found it! No really, this time! The register in questions lurked at me menacingly, but I opened it up and dug in.

I found a good, solid, reconciled place from about a month before the move, and started there. I opened an Excel spreadsheet, and entered every single transaction since October 28th. I ran a running balance column. Whew! I found duplicates. This will fix it, I thought.

Really? Ya think? Ever been wrong three times in one day?

What I came up with was still about $200 off from what the bank thinks I have. The error was in my favor. Those are the scariest kind. If I screwed up, I was going to default on my student loan payment or something else important.

It's a month of faith. If you're a teacher getting paid on the last business day of each month, guess what? December's last business day is the day you leave for Winter Break, in my case December 20th. Even if you haven't ever been good at math, you work your hardest on math skills this month, because you have to make it to the end of January before you get another check. Suddenly I'm the most frugal woman on the planet.

So, I just believed the bank. I wrote in today's date, and in the transaction line, I put (as I do about twice a year) "Bank sez" and the amount they think I have. Next to that amount, I put two check marks; one indicates I have calculated the running balance and the second indicates that it has been reconciled with my statement.

Uh-huh.

This time the marks are lies. Desperate, capitulating lies.

But at least the bills are paid.

Now to figure out how poor I'll be after I pay that capital gains tax.