Tuesdays: ninja Mondays

I've concluded that Tuesdays are really ninja Mondays. Or, they're the Spanish Inquisition day (as in: you don't expect....) Because if a day is going to go really pear-shaped for me, chances are it's a Tuesday and not a Monday.

Today, for example. I've been having what I hope works out to be a little tax issue. Because of the nature of some investments I have, or because I derped somewhere in filling out the forms, or someone at the Cincinnati office had a bowl of too-spicy chili before they went over my form, I got a letter back. Saying I was "possibly" eligible to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax. (Well, that's like being eligible to have the flu: you don't really want it. And "alternative minimum" means "you pay more than you would otherwise")

I tried to fill out the form. I really did. But it made no sense to me and the instructions didn't help. I didn't know what went in some of the boxes. So I went to the local Jackson-Hewitt franchise. Unfortunately, they are only open Tuesdays during the summer, and their accountant guy is apparently a work from home guy. So I got all my paper work out to them last week, then got a text message from the guy today saying there was some paperwork I forgot. I managed to chase it down (including getting something faxed to me) and sent it on.

Well, now he's text messaging me saying some of the numbers "don't work," did I miss a K-1 form. No, no I didn't. (Yes, I get that it's a First World Problem, and the fact that I am well off enough to be invested in stuff that issues K-1 forms - though I NEVER will follow the advice to invest in those things again because dealing with the paperwork is truly monstrous and I'd rather, I don't know, find something less painful to invest in)

(And whaaarrrrrgarrrblll, I HATE dealing with this kind of thing via text message. I am so not a texter. Previously, my text messages were limited to "Where are you" and "OK" in dealing with research students late for fieldwork. Now, I have to try to explain things, using a 10-key keypad (yes, I have a dumbphone. I am too cheap to get a smart phone) where you have to tap three times on the 6 if you need a letter "o."

It MIGHT be sorted now. At any rate, I ran back to my office to get what he said was a missing form that wasn't actually missing (it was rolled into another form that he has, and I pointed that out). But gah.

And then, and then, mid afternoon I get a call from my credit card issuer. They had "suspicious charges." One to the tune of $6 and something for Caesar's Palace. (I gasped, and said "Good lord no" when the guy said that) and a $300-some charge to....I don't know where it was but I think it was a foreign airline. Not Alitalia, but it sounded like that. So they're cancelling the card. The annoying thing is that this is the card that I make small automatic monthly donations to Mercy Corps and Heifer Project and other places on.....so I will have to call all those places and give them the NEW number when it comes out. (No, I don't think they were the source of the theft. I use this card for online shopping and also to buy gas)

My credit card doesn't get to have more fun than I do.


And then, I got to deal with the IRS calling phone tree, because I needed to ask for an extension on all this business. I do not recommend dealing with the IRS calling phone tree. (You can sign up for them to call you, which is preferable, except I know I would be in class when they called, and I am SO not giving them my cell phone number and then stopping class to talk to them; that would set a very bad precedent with my students). It is truly hellish, the maze of push 1 for this and 4 for that. (If Satan has a hobby, it is probably designing phone trees).

Then I waited about 25 minutes. Their "hold music" is the same four chords played over and over and over again. I could feel my brain starting to melt out my ear. (If they had at all a sense of humor, they'd be playing "Money (that's what I want)" and "Taxman" as their hold music). Finally I talked to a woman with a heavy deep-South accent. She wanted me to read the letter they sent me to her. The letter was like four pages long and repeated itself. I pleaded to be allowed to summarize, and she grudgingly agreed. Finally, I said, "I just need an extension....I have a tax place working on it but they are only open one day a week in my tiny little town and they might not be done in time" (Okay, so my town isn't tiny-little, but the tax place is only open one day a week in the summer.) She agreed.

I will say to my credit that (a) I did not yell at her or even let my voice get strained and (b) I managed to say "Thank you very much" in a polite voice at the end of the call. Partly because I kept telling myself she was just a worker bee and it wasn't her fault I derped on the forms and was having to do this and that she probably listens to angry people all day long, partly because I figured if I was nice I was more likely to get an extension, and partly, well, it's the IRS. Just as you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, you don't get snippy with the IRS over the phone.

At any rate: that's my three crummy things. I hope that concludes the trifecta and I can have smooth sailing for a while.