Plan B.

Plan B:

Last year, my friend Jhni helped me file my taxes when I drove down and visited her in Big Bear.

(you heard about Big Bear earlier this year. That rogue cop was hiding out there – a block from the task force command center looking for him, lol – and they burned down the "cabin" around him. You should realise that "cabin" is in quotes for a reason. It was no back-woods one room abode, no, it was a million dollar vacation home. Only 6 or 7,000 people make Big Bear their home year-round, but the population swells by tens of thousands when it snows up there. Big Bear is southern California’s premier ski resort town)

Jhni is the "Girl Friday" to many contractors and offices up there; she knows her shit, and doing my taxes last year took, even though they were a lot more complex than this year’s, less than an hour all together, using H&R Block’s free filing site online.

Since I knew I was low on ink, I thought, well, this is dead simple this year, I’ll just do it by hand and write the numbers on the lines and mail it off myself.

You can’t do that if you can’t find the forms you need, so I went to H&R Block again and did it online. That was simple and easy, but… I did run out of ink 2/3’s of the way through the printout, and I have to scrounge up enough money to buy another black ink cartridge. They are pricey, comparatively. A fraction of the usual Unemployment was Direct-Deposited this morning, because I have reached the end of that rope, and I had to pay the car insurance, to keep using my car. I owe money on the car, so not having insurance is not an option, and it’s really stupid to not have it. you get in trouble for that, and you leave yourself open to all that liability, and I am dirt fucking poor. I’d have to hope any car crash killed me dead, otherwise, I would be dead, metaphorically, without insurance and having had an accident.

The last couple of pages didn’t print out dark enough to bother to mail; you can barely read them and the state tax people would not be happy. I know of a place that refills ink cartridges, for like 15 bucks, and I think I have about that much left. I am not kidding or being overly dramatic when I say I HAVE NO MONEY. I don’t.

"For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost…."

Whaddyagonnado? Tell the tax people you don’t have ink? Like that’s gonna fly anywhere.

At current expenses, the refunds total almost three months worth of cash, and I’ll get precisely none of it, due to things owed to the state and the feds. That would suck, but it doesn’t change my position now: I don’t have anything, and I’m not "losing" any more, I just won’t get any more.

Plan B.

ICBW, and good thing I made some sort of payment on my cable Internet, or I’d be up the creek without a paddle OR a canoe.

So it goes.

 

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