Checking my tax return status today, I discovered that I’d inadvertently submitted it with one digit incorrect in my social security number. So it hasn’t been processed in the four weeks since I mailed it in. On the other hand, I haven’t had any communication from the IRS pointing out that I failed to submit it with the right social security number, which probably means the started thing is in a mound of unopened envelopes somewhere in an IRS processing facility, or that somebody has opened it, but has been too busy to write back. Oh, what a fuss and nonsense. Now I need to print all 59 pages again and remail it. At least I’m not going to get fined, because I was lucky enough to be owed a refund, not pay extra.
That wasn’t the only mess up this year. We mailed La Serpiente’s passport application to Canada (after we failed to realise it expired in February) but my wife forgot to sign the photographs (which was necessary as she was the guarantor). For months we’ve been waiting for it to get processed, and finally we called them today to discover the photo wasn’t signed, and that’s in the post coming back to us to sign and then mail back. So I guess at some point in the future my daughter has a passport and I have a tax refund. But not yet.
Stressed out by both of these things, I struggled to make progress with my work today. My wife fled to have a normal conversation next door with our neighbours, and then I had to persuade the girls to eat their dinner, rather than look out the window at their mother. Destroyer refused, and stamped her foot, until finally I got cross and told her I’d throw her food in the bin if she didn’t eat it, after which she cried, I felt bad, and eventually she ate it all and (I hope) forgave me. What a day…