Taxes and French Fries

Hello Again!

Just thought I'd share in the grief of taxtime. We're having a terrible time with taxes! Oh, not this year's. We already sent those in. We're having trouble with 2004's return! That was the first year we decided to do them online. We did, it was easy, no problem. We owed money; the twins outgrew the child tax credit. (We hate owing. We know that you should try and balance, but we would always rather get money back. Forced savings, so to speak, albeit interest-free). We paid over the phone, we have the receipt, so we think all's ok. Earlier this year we received a letter saying we owed another $5.??, so we sent that in. So here we skid into 2006, filed 2005's taxes and sleep well, for this year, we get money back! (Pays to give big-time to God!!) BUT NOOOOOOOO! 2004 still plagued us. Saturday, we received another letter telling us that we owed another $1642.34. Seems when we sent in a hard copy, Hubby forgot to place the twins' SSN's, so instead of someone merely looking them up in their mega computer where they've been known by a number, not a name since birth, they take away two deductions and bill us. I called them after work tonight and spoke with a nice man (see? IRS folks can be nice!) but he gave me misinformation by saying that since the twins were 17 throughout 2004, they would qualify for the child tax credit after all. So I start downloading forms and instructions - 12 pages worth. Then I read that the child should be under 17, not 18. Rats. All that work and time. So I call again and get a tax expert who goes through the numbers with me and ultimately says, yeah, you read right, UNDER 17. So we hang up and I start to domore paperwork to add the SSN's when it occurs to me: why not just fix this over the phone? So I call a third time. This time was Miss Pringle, the most awesome IRS worker ever. Enthusiastic and had it fixed in less than three minutes. And she has twins, too! I hope we're finally done with 2004.

Now, about those french fries. The last time I took Molly to the vet, I decided to placate her on the ride home with a small fry from BK. The BK near my vet's really has the lousiest food ever, but it's a beagle, so who cares, right? We received a bag of greasy, white, cold mush. Even Molly wouldn't eat them! Now I happen to know the Hardee's has crispy golden fries, so I decided to by and Molly and I would share. I showed the Hardee's staff the BK fries, told them Molly didn't want them, and they actually fried her a piece of bacon! Well, you can believe she ate that! And no fries. I guess she just doesn't like fries. Weird dog. Knowing that there would be no formal dinner tonight, I decided to stop by said Hardee's for some good fries. There was this tall, totally pale kid running the window. He moved ethereally slowly. Really, like he was undead. Kinda creepy. He also was cooking, so he lanked his way back to the window to tell me he was making fresh fries because the other batch was old. I told him how much I appreciated that, and I meant it! I love hot, crispy fries. Must've waited 5 minutes, the whole time watching him s-l-o-w-l-y move about the store. Pasty, lanky slowness. NOT one to date your daughter! He looked like the kind of guy who stands at the Haunted Mansion to greet you. Yeah, that's the perfect job for him! And he makes great fries.