Stop Payment

You wrote a check. On paper. Old school. It turned out that the landscaper to whom you gave the check did not, in fact, leave 14 bales of manure on your landscaped garden. All he left was the rolled up speeches from 1,000 politicians.

While the ethos of both are the same, the rolled up paper won't help your tomatoes grow deep roots. Unable to reach the landscaper, you call the bank and stop payment on the check, hopefully within about 3 days of when he will have cashed it. There are usually a few days' lag between depositing and the landscaper being able to get his cash.

Ironically, your tomatoes that summer never did better with the political speeches.