Wednesday, April 18, 2007

paying my dues

On Monday, I realized that my accountant’s filing of my taxes did not mean I didn’t have to actually write a check and pay them. Yes, I owed money. Mostly because I had quarterly installments last year and I thought they were optional and therefore didn’t pay them. They aren’t. I also somehow failed to connect that owing money and getting it to the IRS involved some kind of effort on my part.

As one of the cops at the post office said, I’m a procrastinator.

I spent most of Monday stressing about the post office experience that faced me. My boss kept saying, “You need to leave the office right now and go mail your taxes.” But I couldn’t leave, because I still had way too much work to do.

Then I got the awesome idea to spend a little more money and Fed Ex them. What’s another 13 bucks, right? I could even do it from work. This made me happy.

Until I finished filling out the shipping form and realized that Fed Ex won’t deliver to post office boxes, and the IRS uses post office boxes. I had no choice but to go to the post office.

First I worked until 8, then I went to dinner at Fireside Pies with some friends, so it was after 10 before I started following my Google map to the 24-hour post office. Perfect timing. The rush should have already gone home for the night.

When I exited the freeway, I saw a line of cars piled up, snaking their way into the parking lot. Then I saw the cops directing the line of cars. Great. Not so perfect timing. I steeled myself for a long wait.

Right as I got to the front of the line of cars, someone pulled out of the front spot and the officer waved me into it. When I got out, he said he saved that spot for all the pretty girls. I laughed and he said I was the only one who didn’t believe him which made me smart and pretty. I guess he had to entertain himself someway, because once I got inside, I realized it wasn’t crowded at all.

There were probably 15 people in line. One of the postal workers asked if anyone was paying with credit or debit card. I said I was. He whisked me out of line, took me to the automated machine, did everything for me – including fill out the certified mail/return receipt stuff. I was in and out in less than 5 minutes.

Perfect timing.

Now if only I could have kept that check that was heading to a post office box…

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geez, EVERYTHING ALWAYS works out for you, doesn't it.

*wink*

10:49 AM  

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