Taxes, Teeth and a Tremor (but mostly taxes)

NB - This may well be the most over-blown post of my entire life to date.

This week has been up and down as usual and somewhat stressful in places.

We had our first 'proper' tremor on Monday which shook the whole building and could not possibly be mistaken for anything else. It was about a 4 on the Richter Scale so only a slight chair wobble, but it made the weekly test warning siren a bit more unnerving. In fact, 10 months later, I still can't believe that I live somewhere which has a weekly World War 2 siren at noon to test the earthquake warning system, but perhaps that is a good thing, that I still can't believe it that is, as it means I am not immune.

Also this week, when free dental screening at a dental school was offered, we found ourselves at the front of the queue, proving that we will actually do anything for free. It was very worthwhile as it was discovered that possibly as the result of sugar laden food, I now have a cavity the size of a whale which needs immediate attention. These weren't the exact words used but the whiter than white teeth which surrounded me as soon as the masks were removed bewitched and dazzled me so the actual exact phrases have become blurred in my head. I was just pleased that there were no gasps of horror when I got my British dull yellow choppers out.

I managed to flood the bathroom floor and then almost broke my neck trying to clean it up.

Our veggie box came with celery even though I expressly told them I loathed it.

OK, so those last two were just for bulk purposes but all of this was nothing compared to the trauma of having to do a tax return. What turned out to be four short forms took us eight long days to complete. We almost got divorced in the process (not really Mum, I'm exaggerating ever so slightly) and it only ended well or at all because we finally admitted we needed some help.

We had to file federal and state tax returns. We went to a workshop to help us with the federal forms, which turned out to be relatively straightforward, despite the workshop being the usual horrific poorly explained nonsense. It obviously did provide some help though as we managed to complete the forms. I had to suffer another lecture from someone in the post office in order to post them (why, why, why would you ever write the sender's address on the front of an envelope? I simply cannot remember stupid systems, perhaps on principal) but all of that was fine. We felt a little smug. One down, one to go; this wasn't so hard after all.

Then, we got around to the state tax. I won't bore you with the details. Tax isn't exciting or sexy and in the hands of a country of crazy bureaucracy, it was blood boiling, confusing and exhausting. I spent a long time on hold to the state of California listening to the worst on-hold music I have ever encountered, spoke to a very friendly and helpful woman who really didn't want the whole process to be confusing or difficult for us, left her feeling I had a grasp on which alphanumerical titled form we needed to send back, only to find that as soon as we sat down to fill in boxes, we had no more idea than a wet fish what the hell they wanted from us. Mike bore most of the form filling brunt as, well, he actually has a job.

The breakthrough came when we decided we would ring someone, make an appointment, and pay them to do it for us. This morning these words would have stuck in my throat like the bones of that recently wet but now fried fish. We were desperate people willing to pay any price to take the pain away and make sure we did it right. If this sounds melodramatic to you, well then it probably is. We were quoted $120 and made the appointment anyway thinking that although expensive, our sanity was worth more than that. Half an incredibly painless hour and $40 later we skipped away from our new bestest tax-genius friends feeling that everything was right in the world. $40 was a very small price to pay for skip-inducing glee. We immediately spent some of our 'winnings' on a bottle of wine to celebrate.

We had to run for the bus back from the supermarket, at full pelt, and when we got there huffing and puffing, the driver told us that she had at first intended to wind down the window to tell us not to worry that she would wait for us anyway, then decided that we needed the exercise so she didn't bother. Not even that took the wind out of our sails for these nonresident aliens have filed their tax returns for this year and feel jubliance hitherto never felt about charges levied by the government on income.

I'm still not sure that I have explained how happy we felt enough, so to labour the point, this: On Thursday I won two free tickets to a show which had good reviews and was entertaining. Regular readers will know how much I love a freebie. I dream of worlds full of so much freeness that disease has been eradicated...did I say I was labouring the point? That's lucky. Anyway, even the show, the freeness of the entire night out, and the joy of winning something, which is always a wonderful feeling, was nothing compared to the ecstasy of having completed our tax return.

UK PAYE I salute you; a heartfelt, respectful long salute which, for tonight anyway, knows no bounds.