To get her son to write to her, a resourceful mother sent him a cheque with this note: “Do not cash this cheque until you write me a thank-you letter.”
A few weeks later, the cheque had cleared in her account, yet no message had arrived. So she called her son.
“I told you not to cash the cheque until you’d written to thank me,” she complained.
“I didn’t cash the cheque,” he said. “I deposited it.”