Assuming that you don't dispute that you owe the money for services rendered or goods supplied, there can be only three plausible explanations for a bill not being settled:

(a) you never received it

(b) something happened to it after you received it but before you could pay it

(c) you paid it but they never received your money.

All three reasons for non-payment have one thing in common: they are not your fault.

Why did you never receive it?

No, it wasn't lost in the post. Nor was it sent to the wrong address. It wasn't even destroyed in a fire at your local sorting office. It was stolen by the postman. Why should your postman wish to steal a plumber's bill for £89.60, plus VAT? Because he couldn't cope, that's why. Unable to complete his round in the time available, he started taking mail home with him, with the intention of delivering it the following day. Alas, next day ...

By the time Post Office investigators caught up with him, his three-bedroomed semi was crammed with more than eight thousand sacks of undelivered letters, one of which contained - you can only presume - the unpaid plumber's bill.

The Post Office are working flat out to deliver the

stolen mail, some of it dating back eleven years, and as soon as they have cleared the backlog, you will settle the account. You'd like to settle it before, but some of the undelivered letters contain cheques payable to you and without these funds you cannot meet your present commitments.

What happened to it after you received it but before you could pay it?

Your green Amazon parrot ate it. Unfortunately the shredded pieces of paper at the bottom of his cage were too few and too small to be able to determine the nature of the document, and you are most grateful to them for making it possible to identify it. Regrettably, your parrot also ate a cheque payable to you and you will be unable to settle this account until a new cheque has been drawn in your favour.

How come you paid it but they never received your money?

As you were ill in bed with "flu at the time you wrote the cheque, you gave the letter to the window cleaner to post. Shortly after leaving your house, but before he had posted your letter containing the cheque, your window cleaner was arrested while placing his ladder against a wall by the window of the dormitory of a girls' school. As a known offender, he was refused bail and subsequently sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. Only then was your letter discovered among his effects and returned to you by the Governor of Pentonville Prison.

Back to Art of Excuses Index