Maybe you also got a check, yes mate?

Withhold the natural predilection
to get emotionally buoyed aloft!

A counterfeit check got issued to me
from Keller Manufacturing, Incorporated,
Cremation Equipment Manufacturing and Service
located at 4442 Holden Road
Lakeland, Florida 33811
whereat Mid Florida Credit Union, The Payer
also located in the sunshine state
offering me tantalizingly
bonafide looking check,
(which in name only)
to the mouth watering tidy sum
of sixty five hundred dollars.

Carrie Richardson, the Citizens Bank manager
at the Trappe, Pennsylvania location
unwittingly deflated momentary
ballooned glee of mine,
(yet thankfully, indubitably, and blessedly
provided unsolicited wide counsel)
by questioning my lack of familiarity
to the company in the business
regarding selling a full range of human
and animal cremation systems
and industry services
including maintenance, refractory rebuilds,
annual inspections, air pollution control,
system upgrades, emergency services
and support equipment.

Mary (Nelly) Brown
from social media platform Facebook Messenger
back in the day
(approximately six months ago)
sent me a friend request,
which I willingly accepted,
and then more recently
maybe half a fortnight ago
who of late tried (donning claims
of unrequited love)
to coerce me some weeks ago
to inveigle yours truly into a
(yes fraudulent) scheme,
whereby a check
for an unspecified modest sum
would arrive in the mail,
which parcel surreptitiously
dropped off here
at Highland Manor Apartments
courtesy mail delivery person,
and innocuously looking nondescript flat
patiently waited for me
beneath mailbox b44
without so much as an explanation,
whereat initial hunch of mine
piqued and pricked
overactive imagination of mine,
whereat naive me misperceived
said item to be copacetic,
and insisted in her broken English
she explained I needed to go
to an ATM machine
and take the check in tow
(endorsed of course
neigh said the talking horse -
compliments of Mister Ed)
to get processed courtesy
Automatic Teller Machine
(an electronic banking machine
that allows customers
to perform financial transactions
without a human teller,
such as withdrawing cash,
checking account balances,
depositing funds, and transferring money,
and at a hypothetical ATM,
a person needs a debit or credit card
and a personal identification number (PIN),
however if transaction satisfactorily processed,
the recipient would walk away
scott free with the stash of cash
leaving the intended poor sucker
(please don't call out
Matthew Scott Harris)
would incur penalties
of at least twenty dollars
and most likely getting
banking privileges revoked,
and worse case scenario
be declared a "Bank dick,"
a term from
the 1940 film The Bank Dick,
starring W. C. Fields and ironically enough
in the film, "bank dick"
the title of a character, a security guard,
and refers to a job that exists
to protect a bank, a financial institution
that handles money.

Countless scams pervade and abound
across the webbed, wide world
and none other than the writer of these words
would be ostracized, and crowned
the laughing stock and frowned
taken down a peg or two
from mere moments ago being jocund
suddenly finding her/himself going outbound
on the next train traveling
fast as a soundcloud
before going underground
sent far into the heart of darkness.

Ofttimes I envision such supposed
abominable fate to be a blessing in disguise
alone in the wilderness
left to one's non
electronic sophisticated devices
to live or perish,
a true test of one's mettle,
the vast majority of people
(myself included) would meet their demise,
a taste of which occurred
during the government shutdown of 2025.