In yesterday’s mail—a large tax mixup with the state of Oklahoma, who thinks we still live there and have for the last 10 years. Near heart attack…which I didn’t want to tell Jane about until I solved it. Which I have, or at least I’ve got someone on the problem. My accountant, who’s IN Oklahoma, says he can fix it: this happens all too often—apparently one of my old agencies or former publishers sent 1099’s to the wrong state. So now we’ve got the state of Oklahoma confused, and the collection agencies they hire to handle this frothing at the mouth, just what our nerves need, and now they’ve likely sold our name to OTHER agencies. We’ll just have to ignore the vultures and wait for our accountant to explain to the state that taxes were paid long ago, and that we don’t owe them anything.
Today—I go to get the extra pieces of the bridge deck because OSGuy has promised to bring the chop saw and cut it up for us, so we want to get it all cut. Wrong lumber. I got whiteboard Choice. I have to schlep it all back again. So I turn it in, and nearly kill the Lowe’s guy when my bungee cord slipped my rather tired fingers—fortunately he was just out of range.
But the lumber I schlepped in evidently put pressure against our windshield–because when I had finally scraped together every fir Select lumber 1×4 of whatever size Lowe’s had—and went back out to load the car, our windshield had a great big starshaped crack in it. I can’t believe anyone hit it at Lowe’s…I think it was just a ding that traveled. Update: closer examination reveals sawdust around the scene of the impact, and no old ding. We now think some idiot/coward in the adjacent parking place in the loading area for construction stuff dumped a piece of lumber, broke our windshield, and scampered. Nice.
Oh, my. You are due for a long run of good things now, surely.
Sounds as though you’re having a troubling day! Hope it clears up soon! I hate those long runs of ‘things go wrong’ which can be really annoying and make them seem even worse because it’s one piled atop another.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to remove the windshield, add something from your sewing notions collection and create your own surrey with the fringe on top. With an Oklahoma heritage and your musical talents I think you would really have something special 🙂
I think we’re close to it. 😉
But hopefully this is one thing insurance will actually pay for.
Heheheh, I like the surrey idea! Also love the avatar, NextShipOut.
Hmm, taxes…I feel your pain. Hope they get it all sorted out soon. It was a good while before “help” organizations got word I’d paid my property taxes off, and they quit sending help/threat notices. Most peculiar, that was. — Omigosh, I think I got a refund check a while back…but no memory of cashing it! I know what I’m looking for when I get home tomorrow! Eek.
The bread. You forgot in the list of today’s tribulations that unfortunate loaf of bread.
You know, most places have video cams going to catch stuff like that these days. Might be worth it to ask them to check the time.
I’ve gone more than a couple rounds with the IRS myself, and I’m sure state governments are just as byzantine and machiavellian. You have my deepest empathy and moral support. Since you have indoor cats, I thought this might interest you: http://grundlepod.blogspot.com/2011/06/definitive-littermaid-modification.html
The wonderful part is they’re trying to freeze our bank account right when our insurance company has wigged out on us and we need money for medical bills. This is just so great. Ten years of accumulated stupid mess lands on us this week…I mean, last week would’ve been worse, but this one isn’t too great either.
This is absolutely typical of the OK tax commission. My mother-in-law’s estate went to probate; OTC came by to dispute the value of her property and they wanted to tie everything up in the courts forever unless we agreed to an “adjusted” valuation on the house. We paid up, of course, but it was pure extortion!
And these geniuses—were once surprised by an audit and had the entire office floor papered with checks and paperwork they were trying to sort. This was back in the 60’s.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get somebody to get the right paper to the right bin to tell them they have no claim in this case.
Keep an eye on your credit ratings. Tax stuff probably gets reported to the rating companies and can cause complications in very strange places.
The time that they had me listed as dead it only took a phone call to straighten out – once I found out.
Yep. They’ll screw us up every way possible. And with Jane’s medical bills, this isn’t exactly a good thing.
It’s starting to sound like you’re ready for a chorus of “Born Under A Bad Sign” — if it wasn’t for bad luck you wouldn’t be having no luck at all.
Here’s hoping your accountant understands the urgency of the situation
He does. He’s a longtime guy with us—20 years; and he called an office meeting of his whole staff when he got the faxes from us. He swears he can fix this.
At one point today my accountant thought it might relate to my inheritance from my mum; but that wouldn’t be the case, since all those taxes are paid. Then we thought it might be a total scam. Now I finally!!!! got a communication from the state that thinks it’s income tax. From 2006. With a monster penalty nearly exceeding the original tax amount as they figure it. Plus fees for filing against me. I didn’t live or work in Oklahoma in 2006, and had been living and working in Washington since mid-2000, so this may be indeed, one of my ex-agencies filing a 1099 to the wrong state. I think there may be a we-don’t-owe-a-thing answer to this one. That would be good.
We got the car windshield replaced for a pretty good price.
And I threw out the (not very) old yeast and bought new: today’s loaf of bread was high, pretty, and crunchy-crust as you could wish!
And I found the city about to cut off our water—and got the bill paid and stopped that. This spate of Badness has gone on so long a little distracted failure to attend to things in a timely way is starting to cycle round again.
I believe you can get it replaced at no cost to you if you say it was road hazard i.e. a rock hit it. Same thing, good luck.
In Massachusetts we have a progressive insurance law (and perhaps a strong windshield replacement industry) and any little crack in the windshield results in a “no cost to car owner” replacement covered by the insurance company. The state simply doesn’t want the accidents related to a windshield suddenly disintegrating on the driver while driving. Mind you, we also have mandatory car owner insurance (yes, we’re apparently big on mandating insurance, be it for one’s own health or the car’s) in this state.
After some thought, I have concluded it is better to be paddling than puddling or piddling. Pudding, though is almost universally welcome. If only a batch of pudding would satisfy the errant creditors and all their wacky nephews.
I shall be hoping for that “don’t-owe-a-thing” result for you. ASAP. Meanwhile, enjoy that lovely bread. (A small bowl of BlueCatShip’s pudding wouldn’t come amiss, either!)
CJ said, “This spate of Badness has gone on so long a little distracted failure to attend to things in a timely way is starting to cycle round again.” I understand completely as I’ve been in this cycle for a few months now. It makes me *almost* feel like I’m losing it, but I’m not. It’s just that things have taken on weird timing, with odd occurrences thrown at me. I’m not referring to the severe weather events etc., rather more to odd behavior of animate and inanimate objects close to home. I’ve made some rather drastic changes, trying to regain a balance but it’s too soon to tell if they will help. I have a friend who believes the Badness, both personal and global, to be Mother Earth dissipating all the “bad energy” generated. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s an interesting idea to ponder. Whatever the cause, I hope that your Badness stops immediately and that all the bills, tasks, health care issues, and annoyances smooth out, get resolved, and start behaving!
Speaking of ‘the harder you paddle’ — I’m watching the river start to flood in this area with parts of town losing ground to it. I have hopes that it will not reach where I am. Ugh. Awful summer.