Perhaps I am Uncle Sam’s Bitch?

I got a check this morning from the United States Treasury for $244.35. I was not expecting a check from the United States Treasury for $244.35. There was no explanation with it, I have filed nothing lately, and have no reason why our government would be coughing up such an odd-ish amount.

Do you think it is a Xmas present? If so, I would like to say “thank you” in a very polite tone of voice.

As a former federal employee, though, I am well acquainted with how da gubment works and am pretty sure this is not them randomly getting into the festive spirit. If they are pushing money into my hands, there is a reason for it and I am on the trail of said reason. To that end I have emailed the office that issued it (Kansas City, speaking of random, since there is a Treasury office right across the bay over in Oakland. Whatever) a message couched in the most respectful terms possible. Again, as a former fed I know getting pissy this early in the game is counter-productive and jokes are absolutely disastrous. Also, this just in, using the word “fuck” in any correspondence with any agency: not a good idea.

So anyway, on the off-chance this is a legitimate payout to me and not some screw up that is going give me a headache for the next six months as I try to straighten it out, I am taking suggestions on how to spend this windfall. Ideas?

In Which mrpeenee Conquers Paperwork

mrpeenee has been in a funk. Not funky, as in “git down you funky motherfuckers” but in a funk, as in “Why should I get out of bed when I’ll just climb right back in here?” Not helping things have been the piles of unattended to paperwork looming about, staring at mrpeenee with accusing fonts and distracting me from the attention required by expensive porn.

Stacks one, two and three seen here in their sullen poutiness. There is also a stack four, but I was so depressed taking pictures of random window envelopes and their contents that needed my attention, I had to give up. At one point, I believe there was a method to this madness that explained why each stack existed separate from its brethren, but then I remembered one of the piles was just what had fallen off of the one next to it and suddenly I was back to longing for my own widdle beddy-bye.

All of this is the result of R Man’s death (and, by the way, its his death, not his passing, or his end, or his expiration, or any of the other synonyms the clerks I’m dealing with fumble to find when they have to say the word. Death. It’s OK.)

It’s been four months since he died and I started down this particular rabbit hole and I’m farther from finalizing all this than I was in March. A huge part of it is my own slothful fault, some of it is just the nature of dealing with government agencies, agencies devoted to survivor benefit, but who don’t like to say the word “death.” I torture them with it, pronouncing it very clearly, with relish. Plus, it takes so little to get me sidetracked. Late in April, I slammed into our water bill, which had always been paid automatically from R Man’s checking account. Oops, not happening. Instead of dealing with it, I decided to go see what was going on over in Pornland and wound up avoiding having the water cut off only by a desperate, last minute trip down to the water department. So very not pretty.

And, in my defense, let me make clear I am not some little wifey who had all this financial stuff dumped into my ignorant lap. My superior OCD talents meant I was always the one who sorted the bills and filed them after payment. How I wound up with this “Big Stack, Little Stack” system is a mystery to me.

Much Later:

I decided not to post this until I had made a good faith effort at clearing away some of the paper underbrush and once I got going, I wound up finishing it all, except for one bill that I need to argue about and one complicated deposit thingy I need to straighten out. I am plenty pleased with my bad self. That even includes the brief, but scary period when I thought I had lost a very large check, a check with a great many digits. I was prepared to go to the mat with the agency that sent it, demanding a new one, when I found I had been looking at it all along without realizing what it was. Oh, the wacky hijinx of mrpeenee’s financial adventures.

High Finance, Low Scruples

R man and I are re-financing our mortgage. No big thrill, but at least it gave me something to make conversation about with my father when I spoke to him on Sunday. As soon as I mentioned what we were doing, he offered to loan us $100,000 at a ridiculously loan rate. I think it’s to my great credit that I refused. I do not want to take advantage of my father’s generosity. According to my father, that is not a trait I share with my brothers, which in turn, makes me even less eager to join in at the trough.

Never the less, he pressed me to accept because, as it turns out, he has $100k in an “investment” which has lost money three of the last four years. I know the last year has been rough, but prior to that, one would have had to work aggressively to lose money. And that would appear to be exactly what my father did. Some guy cold called him and talked him into this great money making opportunity. I think there were more details, but I didn’t hear them; I had put the phone down so that I could more effectively bash my head on the kitchen counter in frustration.

Say you are an elderly man sitting around watching old guy movies. The phone rings and a stranger says “mrpeenee’s father, I would like to talk to you about your portfolio. “ Do you reply, “My sons have repeatedly told me not to talk to gypsies”? Nope. You say, “Where do I send the check?”

When you’re a little boy, you think your daddy knows everything, that he’s Superman. Then, as you grow into a smartass punk teenager, you decide he’s a brainless idiot who knows nothing. Later, having matured, you come to see that you’ve been too harsh, that he’s a perfectly sensible adult, just like you. And then, at 54 years old, you realize you were right when you were a sullen 15 year old: he is an idiot who is a menace to himself.

So now, I can either join in with my brothers, be no better than they are, and take the money (although I would pay it back, just like a regular mortgage. That would be good just for the novelty’s sake,) or not take it and wait for yet another scam artist. Oh, what the hell, who am I fooling? Make that check out to mrpeenee and get it in the mail. It would seem I have more in common with my dear brothers than I thought.