Byline: Bill Fortier

COLUMN: SOUTH COUNTY NOTEBOOK

It's time for your loyal scribe to put in his two cents' worth.

And this time it really is two cents' worth, as a check for that amount recently came in the mail.

Yours truly recently moved from Worcester

First of all - and this is a first for this space - any effort to come up with a sophomoric play on words involving Verizon advertising slogans will be ignored.

Can you hear me now?

Whoops.

Got the check in the mail and thought long and hard whether to frame it or cash it.

And so it sat on the bedroom bureau - 2 cents burning a hole in my pocket - and this from a person who hasn't resisted the urge to pick up a penny on sidewalks or parking lots throughout Central Massachusetts for, oh, about, 50 years or so. So last Thursday, after deciding to make a photocopy of the check, the call was made to Verizon's number for people who have billing questions.

Tricia answered the phone and her first question was: "You have a check for 2 cents?"

She would not be the first person to utter those words.

Here's how it happened.

When I moved, I evidently overpaid my last Verizon bill by 2 cents and because the account was closed, there was no way the telecommunications giant could credit my account.

And that meant a check for 2 cents had to be issued.

Tricia, who readily acknowledged that it was the smallest check she had ever heard of in her seven and a half years on the job, said if the check wasn't cashed, Verizon's books wouldn't be balanced.

Hmm. Sounds like my chance to strike a blow against corporate America, something any child of the '60s would love to do.

At any rate, the conversation with Tricia continued.

She said she works in Andover for Verizon.

"We're really in Massachusetts, even though everybody thinks we're not," she said.

"I've had people call about checks for $2, maybe, but never 2 cents," she said with a laugh.

Tricia didn't know how much it costs to process a check, although by then I knew I would be calling the Chapel Hill, N.C., branch of the Wachovia bank that issued the check to see if I could get that answer. She patched me through - as Steve McGarrett used to say on Hawaii Five-0 -

to the collections department, where the humorless person on the other end of the line was decidedly un-amused.

But then again - and I say this with the utmost respect and admiration for bill collectors everywhere - how much fun can it be working in the collections department.

"You could call the bank," he said.

"I'm going to do that but I thought you'd be a nice guy and give me a number," I replied.

"We don't have a number," he harrumphed before hanging up.

So on to Verizon information we go.

The operator on the other end asked which of the three Wachovia Bank branch offices in Chapel Hill I would like to talk to.

I said, seeing as the only thing I know about Chapel Hill is that it is the home of the University of North Carolina, I didn't know.

Finally after some more questioning, I was given the number of the Franklin Financial Center in Chapel Hill.

"You have a check for 2 cents," said a man who wasn't authorized to give out his name, especially when he was told there was a distinct possibility a column on the matter might be forthcoming. He also said there was no way of knowing how much it would cost to process a check and he didn't know who would know.

He did say, however, there are corporate mailing rates and that it might not cost as much as one would think.

When asked if it cost more than 2 cents to process and mail the check, he said, "That would be a fair statement."

It would also be a fair statement that when we went to the bank in Auburn Thursday night to cash the check the teller looked at it with amusement.

"I've never seen a check for 2 cents before," she said with an arched eyebrow.

"I cashed one for 1 cent once," another teller said.

That really made me feel better because it proved that I really wasn't the cheapest person in the Western Hemisphere.

And besides, cashing the check was part of the column.

It's also fair to say that the story up to that point was a source of amusement at Peppercorns in Worcester later that night.

"You cashed a check for 2 cents," one friend said while laughing and shaking his head.

Still, the question on how much it cost to process and mail a 2-cent check persisted.

Office mate and friend John Dignam suggested that somebody at a check-cashing service might have an answer.

"You have a check for 2 cents," said Rodi Tsamis, owner of the Ace Cash Express on Lincoln Street in Worcester.

She said the usual charge for cashing a check starts at $2.32.

"I'd probably just give you the 2 cents," she said. "But my son might charge you the $2.32."

She said 2 cents was the smallest check she'd ever heard of but she added that there have been cases where people have spent $2.32 to cash a $5 check.

"When you figure the cost of postage, the envelope and printing of the check, it probably cost at least a dollar for the check," she said.

Sounds good to me.