Keep Those Checks Coming

My sister Grace informed me this week that she was finally selling her Ford Focus and upgrading to an SUV. My first question to her was, "do you think Ryan Tedder from One Republic will continue to send you residual checks?" You are probably wondering what the hell that has to do with anything but Grace knew exactly what I was talking about and died laughing. I will give you the back story on that crazy tangent she and I went on one day...

I'm not sure if it was just her Focus or all Focuses (or is it Foci?) manufactured but the blinker on that car was ridiculously loud. Like loud to the point that I would be on the phone with her and I could hear it more than her voice. We would have to crank up the radio not to hear it when she was making a turn. It was one of those things we would always laugh about when we were in her car together. One day we were listening to "Apologize" by One Republic when I distinctly heard a familiar sound on the track. We played that part of the song again and there it was- Grace's blinker was featured in the song! I swear it was exactly the same sound, which made us laugh so hard we almost peed our pants. Every time we heard that song (which seemed like every second when it was at the top of the charts) I told her that she should start collecting some residuals from Ryan Tedder (the lead singer of the band). 

One day when I was feeling incredibly creative and bored at work, I drafted up a letter from Ryan Tedder thanking Grace for the use of her car's blinker in the track and apologized ("It's too late to apologize...") for not paying her the residuals that were due since the song aired. I put it on 'One Republic' letterhead and signed it from Mr. Tedder himself. Then, not to deny my sister of the money she deserved, I got out my checkbook, made a copy of a blank check, then whited out all of my info and my account number and filled in Ryan Tedder's info. I made the check payable to 'Grace Demchak' for an obscene amount and folded it up with the letter. I had always read that any residual check received usually came in a green envelope, so I went to the store and finally found a green envelope after looking in the card section for about an hour. I didn't want her to suspect it was from me (like she wouldn't know) so I had my co-worker write Grace's name and address on the front and some random address in LA as the return address for Ryan Tedder. After I mailed the thing, I sat by my phone for days waiting for Grace's call. When she finally received it, I didn't say a word when I answered the phone- we both just died laughing and started to sing the song. Now if only I could put as much effort into writing my book as I did into that gag letter........