The Bill Collector

Today would have been my mother’s eighty-fifth birthday. I have been thinking about her quite a bit lately. I believe that any organizational skills and business sense I have probably came from her.

For a long time, Mother did all the books for Daddy’s veterinary practice – all the posting of every day’s receipts onto the ledger card for each client, recalculating the running balance and refiling them.

Once a month, statements were sent out. This involved making a copy of each ledger card – not on today’s plain paper copiers, but using a device that had a single sheet feeder to send through each ledger card and it spit out a waxy feeling, smelly copy from the roll of paper in the machine. By the end of the roll, you had to work hard to keep the paper flat enough to fold and slide into the window envelopes.

Daddy rarely collected his fees while out on calls, so the monthly statements were critical for family cash flow. If no payment had been made the month before, Mother would put a PLEASE note on the bottom of the statement. When no payments were made again she switched to a note in red crayon and added underlines and exclamation points. One of the clients was a cattle rancher and rodeo supplier, he received the red crayon messages so frequently that one time when he came into the office to pay his bill, he told Mother she should be ashamed of herself for taking her poor children’s crayons. He gave me a dollar on the way out of the office and told me to buy some new crayons and hide them from Mother!

When crayon messages didn’t work, Mother made phone calls to the farmer’s wives appealing person to person and for harder cases to the farmer when he was just sitting down to dinner. She always seemed to know who really could pay but didn’t make it a priority and who to let ride because their circumstances didn’t allow any extra right now to pay the veterinary bill.

The ultimate bill collection effort she hit upon one day when she was aggravated that all options had resulted in no money from her nemesis, the red crayon shamer. One evening, we came in from playing to find no dinner in the works. Instead Mother loaded us all in the family station wagon – dirty faced and bare footed from a day outside – and drove us out to this client’s house. She got us out of the car, marched us up to the house, and pounded on the back door. The man came to the door looking puzzled. When he opened the door, Mother said, “They’re here for supper. I’ll pick them up in an hour.” Then she turned to leave.

“Whoa. Bev I can’t feed all those kids.” The client stood blocking the doorway.

“Neither can I because you haven’t paid your bill in six months!” Mother fired back.

He began laughing. “Just a minute.” He went back in the house and returned a few minutes later with a check that he handed to Mother.

“This is fifty dollars too much.” Mother said.

“Maybe now I can stay ahead. Goodnight!”

I don’t think he stayed ahead too long, but it was the only expedition we ever made to his house at dinner time.

Happy birthday Mother with love.