Normally, we here at Chez Cranky-Face can do our own damn taxes, given enough time and the software to file it for us. The past year, however, has been a little….difficult. The number of hoops we have to jump through (one was on FIRE, I SWEAR) to make things right with Uncle Sam has increased this go-round, by about elebenty-1. There are forms we can’t even file electronically (stupid Commonwealth) this year. We didn’t realize this until we tried to do things our way, and discovered that not only was it not going to be free, it wasn’t going to be possible…and we were pretty sure the software was missing something pretty important. (It was, we later discovered. It was crediting us with money we didn’t actually qualify for. Dammit.)
Happily, one of the ladies in my knitting group knows about These Things, and found us a local group that was helping people out with this process for free. Today, poor Mr. Cranky-Face hoofed it to the library with all our important info in hand, and tried to make sense of it with someone who knows what they’re doing.
Two hours later, I got a stressed call. “Can you get here? Soon?”
CRAP. We don’t have all the necessary info. We owe eight billion dollars. It’s too complicated for them to do and we’ll have to file an extension, throw a random amount of money at the IRS, and later on hire a CPA to tell chastise us thoroughly for our utter ineptitude regarding document retention, I thought. All that together. Simultaneously. Together.
“They need your signature after all,” he said.
“Oh. Uh, yeah. Gimme fifteen minutes.” To strangle you. Of course I hadn’t showered, and the baby was coming up on feeding time, but it had to be done. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but obviously they would need my signature.
I mustered the troops, and we sat there waiting for the nice elderly fellow to figure out how exactly to configure our flaming hoops, while my pulse slowly returned to normal. And then dropped when the Mr. told me how much we owed. (Does that conversation ever go well?) Let’s just say, it’s a good thing the Peanut came along when she did, or we’d be screwed.
To reward the Podling for his relatively good behavior in the conference room (and to help clear our hoop-addled brainmeats), we headed across the hall to the very nice children’s section of the library. Storytime had just ended, but there are a number of toys to play with, and there were several kids still there too. The Podling was not interested in books, or leaving soon so that the Mr. could get to work. I’m sorry to say that we totally denied him playtime with other kids, but pushed him to pick out books. His therapist can thank us later.
The very first book I picked up was a book about a cat and a boy. Cool. A boy with an orange cat. Okay… A boy with an orange cat who passes away. Uh…. A boy with the same name as the Podling who has an orange cat who passes away. UH OKAY A LITTLE TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT THANKS…. MOVING ON. I mean, what are the odds?
Kicking us when we’re low, Universe? Not cool.
The Cranky-Faced Knitter 