Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Blame the Cat...

There is no good excuse for my lack of blogging as of late...so I won't even try to offer one. What I will say is that I have a nice long list of blog ideas, and I plan to start writing a lot more in the weeks to come.

Because of my lengthy absence from this blog- I thought it would be best to start with a little anecdotal story…

It is quite possible that I am the last human alive to keep handwritten business records. Yes, that's right...I handwrite all of my expenses, earnings, miles driven, etc. I always have, and it’s what I’m the most comfortable doing.

When colleagues gasp in horror at the very thought of conducting business in this manner, I simply point out that I never have to worry about the computer crashing, or a hard drive going haywire, thus losing all of my records. My records are kept safe at all times.

Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, after tallying up 2009 for my CPA, I made the fatal error of leaving my notebook of records on the dining room table. Normally, I would have locked them back up in my safe, but I had a brief…and costly…lapse in judgment.

Insert cat here.

It seems one of my feline beauties decided to check out this mysterious notebook while I was otherwise occupied, and decided that the thing my records were missing the most was that morning’s canned tuna…and a nice fat hairball too!

Yes, one of my cats vomited on my tax records. And they did a very thorough job in case you wondered.

I’ve now changed my thinking about the safest and most reliable ways to keep my business records safe. I now subscribe to the theory I was taught many years ago (in regard to files)…if it doesn’t exist in at least two places, then it doesn’t exist. While I will continue to keep hand written records, I will also keep back-ups on my computer. Hopefully that will save me…and my CPA…a little heartache down the road.

And if I can save just one business record from the would-be expulsion of a full-bellied cat…then my job here is done.

Kara Edwards Voice Over

7 comments:

Dee Stephens said...

which cat? awesome story.. ;0

Kara Edwards said...

Xen!! Can you believe it? I would have thought Storm for sure...but it was Xen.

Eric's Blog said...

Great blog! I'm looking forward to your blogs in the near future. And great advice on keeping your business reconds handwritten rather than keeping them on a computer. Keeping them on a computer sounds scarier in many ways.

Eric's Blog said...

Great blog! I'm looking forward to your blogs in the near future. And great advice on keeping your business reconds handwritten rather than keeping them on a computer. Keeping them on a computer sounds scarier in many ways.

swdstmkr said...

Funny story! I bet you came up with some real homework whoppers while you were in school also? j/k. I'm still using paper files too, but I have never heard the quote. It makes very good sense, though. I look forward to more of your posts.

Craig "Voiceroy" Crumpton said...

Every story is made better when it ends with "and then the cat vomited on it."

That's going to be the title of my autobiography. Thanks for the inspiration, Kara!

Kara Edwards said...
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