Taxing day
Let it be said that I have filed our taxes on time and we don't owe the government any money. It's been quite a few years since that happened. I had intended on just filing an extension today because Rob wanted to itemize this year and I hadn't quite got everything together. However, I got cut from work really early today at 11:30 AM so I figured I'd go home, gather it all up and do the math. Except I didn't have a car so I had to take the bus. And it took me TWO HOURS to get home by bus on a route that takes 10 minutes to drive at that time of day because the two bus lines that I needed to get home only run every thirty minutes and of course I missed the bus at my stop at work by only a few minutes. Then that bus decided to have a flat on the way and I had to wait at a stop midway on that route for the next bus (another 30 minutes) and then I just missed the transfer bus and had to wait yet another 30 minutes. Only 30 minutes actually riding on a bus, but an hour and a half waiting for the damn things. If I was still in shape I could have walked home faster since it's only five miles which I used to be able to knock out in a little over an hour. Those days are long gone though so I have to bide my time at the bus stop instead of hoofing it now. So I got home at 1:30 PM and I was starving (I usually eat lunch at 11 or 11:30) so I fixed up some lunch and then decided to go outside and admire the first bloom on my day lilies, pulled some weeds and other various tasks. Then I decided to play the Sims2 for a bit since Rob wasn't home and the computer was just sitting there unoccupied. Yes, I was stalling because I really didn't want to do the taxes. But eventually I gathered up all the items I needed from the far corners of the house and did the math. And as I suspected, there was no point in itemizing deductions. Even after inventing a few shady items to claim I still couldn't come up with more than the standard deduction and stretching things is not a good idea when the IRS is already pissed off at you. I even ran the numbers past Turbotax despite Rob's insistence that I go read pisser's post first. I wasn't planning on using Turbotax to file so I wasn't too worried about getting screwed. The big question on my mind was did I need to print out and fill out forms and then drive to the post office for the magic April 15th postmark date or maybe for once I could just Tele-file and be done with it. It turned out that Tele-file was an option so I went for it and promptly descended into phone hell. First problem was that I had a migraine which meant I could hear the conversations going on inside both my both my neighbor's houses, every barking dog in the neighborhood and the train that was still four miles away every bit as well as I could hear our TV, Rob talking to a co-worker on his phone, our dogs barking and the rats running around in our attic. I've had migraines for 20 years and I've gotten pretty good at picking out the one thread of conversation I want to listen to so I managed okay until it came time to start punching in numbers on the cell phone keypad. My itty-bitty phone has itty-bitty buttons and if I punch a six, I'm likely to get a three as well. This didn't make the IRS very happy and I had to call back. That time I armed myself with a pencil to use to punch the itty-bitty buttons. Things went okay until it came time to punch in the information on the W-2s. Rob had two for last year and I had two. That's a lot of number punching, but thanks to my trusty pencil that wasn't a problem. No, the problem was the teeny-weeny print on two of the forms and I didn't have my magnifying glass handy which meant that the IRS automated attendant lost patience with me while I tried to decide if it was an 8 or a 6 and ended the call. Finally on the third try I got it done and at the end of it all was told this was the last year for Tele-file. Well, I won't be shedding any tears over that. I think it would have been easier to fill out the damn forms and drive to the post office.