something sparkly this way comes…

One of the kittens (they’re nearly identical so I don’t know WHICH FREAKING ONE) danced across the keyboard and did something to my post, destroying it. I’m going to attempt to recreate it. The only thing that autosaved was the title. Grrrr…

My stress level the past few weeks has been on a real high, and although I don’t think that being bipolar had anything to do with it, although, it couldn’t have helped. Start with a stupid issue with the retailer Eileen Fisher (do NOT use a gift card online in conjunction with another form of payment for the balance; you will be charged the full amount until the gift card clears. Nowhere on their site does it state this, and they did this with my debit card for $270.80. They ended up overnighting my order for free.) Then came the aforementioned COBRA debacle, which was finally resolved. My father was generous enough to loan us a thousand dollars cash to cover the first month’s payment, with the understanding that as soon as we sell my car (this week), we’ll pay him back. That’s right, we’re selling my car to pay for our health insurance. We really don’t need an extra car with G working from home, I mean, if there’s an emergency and he needs to go somewhere, he can always call a neighbor or take a cab, right? And if he has to take one of the cats to the emergency vet 25 miles away in White Plains? Oh well. I need to get the brakes checked on the Toyota (my little VW is now sitting in front of our house, detailed and cleaned, devoid of bumper stickers, not accruing any more mileage), the brakes feel like they slip in the rain and snow. Niiice.

Anyway, Ryan from COBRA called me the day after I sent in my Express Mailed my money order to tell me that they had indeed received it and no, there would not be any waiting time for it to clear, but that it would take approximately 48 “business hours” for my enrollment to start. Le sigh. Whatever. I’d done everything I could, now it was in their hands. I reiterated that I was out nearly $1400 for prescriptions and let him know that my father had loaned us the $912.81 that I had sent in, and that I was selling my car in order to pay for the following months’ payments. Dig, dig. He told me to call the next day to see how things were progressing.

Not an hour later, my cell phone rang. It was Ryan. “Your enrollment is final, you can go pick up any prescriptions you need, and you can get reimbursed from the pharmacy. They can resubmit the claims and refund you the money.” I started to cry.

We always file and extension for our income taxes, so October 15th is our April 15th. G got the call on the 9th that the taxes were ready and that we could come pick them up. Over the past months, there’s been lots of back and forth, requesting documentation, numbers, all sorts of stuff. We figured that they would ask for everything they needed. Hah!

I went down to the accountant’s before work on the 10th, around 12:30. I picked up the papers, and got back in my car. I opened up the thick blue folder to take a peek and almost fainted. The amount owed was a little over $14,000; $8,000 federal, $6,000 state. Due TODAY. I walked unsteadily back to the accountant’s office and tried not to freak out. I asked if our accountants were there (it’s a group), no, they weren’t. Another accountant in the office came down to try to make heads or tails of our return on the fly, and started in on me. “You have rental property? And you didn’t do this? And this? And this?” Et cetera. I said, “I sell jewelry for a living, my husband is a computer consultant. You are our accountants. WE DO WHAT YOU TELL US TO DO.” Finally, he said that our guys would be in on Monday, and that we could talk to them then. “But what about the fact that they payment is due TODAY?” I said. “So you’ll pay a little penalty, it won’t be much, a few dollars.” Easy for you to say, the penalty is probably a percentage, and any percentage of $14k is enough. Whatever, they weren’t there, and obviously, no one was going to reach out to them for us.

Part Two, coming soon!