Customers came in yesterday unable to remember their names or the names of the things they wanted, unable to write a check in fewer than three tries, and unable to stop talking.
This may be part of what is so stressful in my life: sheer contagion.
But I also received yesterday a notice from the IRS telling me that I owed them $12.60 for having filed my taxes late. This is a very small thing, especially since I did my taxes in March, and especially since I got a refund, but it is a good example of the sort of thing that is making my life stressful right now. It is not that big a deal, but I have to do something about it. I will have to find copies of my forms and make further copies and buy stamps and send off papers and stuff. You get a few dozen of these things at once — and that is the smallest — and it begins to mount up. Especially if you are working a lot.
Today I am not working. I did a couple of hours of computer work already, and I am planning to ignore the rest of the computer work that needs doing, because this is my day off. I had intended to do quite a lot of things today, but that was before the Evil Dog foiled my plans for sleeping last night. Toby whimpered and barked and whined all night long.
I got up and let him out, and got up and yelled at him, and finally pulled his crate into the pantry in hopes of hearing him less, and he’s lucky I didn’t shoot him.
Not that I have a gun, or would know how to use it, or indeed would even contemplate actually shooting him, but all these facts are just further examples of Toby’s good luck, that’s all.
I think that digital clocks make nights like this worse. You can see that is 2:00, 2:47, 3:11… The night passes so precisely when there is a digital clock on the bedside table, and you can see the chances of getting a reasonable amount of sleep slipping away.
So I am going to pare my goals for the day down to the absolute minimum and fit a nap in between errands and choir.
Those are roses from my garden up there, by the way. Falstaff, to be exact.
Coming back to say that I decided to call the IRS, and have now been on the phone with them for 45 minutes, and they are telling me that I owe them about $2,600. I guess will be spending the morning at the IRS office. This is not shaping up to be a good day.
don’t let the little things bog…
Hmm…looks like you are under one of those black cloud spells these days. Have you checked your horoscope lately? I always find it interesting to see if the doom and gloom was predicted when I have times like this, or if I happened upon it all by myself.
Anyway….(((hugs))) to you because it sounds like you really could use it! I would wish you that your day will get better, but when dealing with the IRS, I don’t know if “getting better” applies.
How about that I hope you survive your day and still manage to get in nap?
It is almost Perseid Meteor shower time. Life can’t be all bad!
That’s insane!! The IRS sucks. The roses are beautiful – and I bet they smell divine. Look at you – a little joy. Stop and smell the roses.
arrrrgh, the IRS is a pain in the you know what. maybe you should send the darn dog to spend the day with the IRS, would serve them right. beautiful roses. maybe turn the digital clock around tonight so you can’t see it when you can’t sleep/
Good luck with the IRS. Make sure you take an entertaining book. They’ll make you wait, and you can use the time to de-stress.
It is not actually the big stressors that cause the problems – the big stressors are bad while they last but they are usually so big that nothing else can bother you. Like if you have pneumonia a bit of hayfever won’t even be noticed.
You are right, it’s the lots of little straw stresses that keep building up, most relatively unimportant by themselves but when combined into a haystack of other straws we end up with a severe allergic reaction. Shame there is no anti-histamine for stress.
I hope you get things straightened out with the IRS. Usually an in-person meeting works better.
What in the world was wrong with Toby? And how come Fiona didn’t start carrying on, too? Would the fact that Fiona stayed quiet while Toby carried on mean that maybe Toby was hurting, and needs a vet?
I sincerely hope not.
Make sure the IRS puts the fact that you owe them $$, with mathematical statements backing up that fact, in writing. Don’t do anything rash, just to get it over with. You have 30 days from the date of the original notification letter (so far, you owe $12.60) to pay up, file a rebuttal or appeal. Take advantage of all the legal rights you have, because heaven only knows they don’t give you many. Can you tell I have been through this before??? Oh yeah, you only have 30 days to answer, but they can take as long as they want to reply to your answer. They also like to see how long you will fight, so my rules are: 1) Keep appealing – 3x usually works AND 2) inundate them with paper and a well-written argument.