Stress Headaches

I had a bad one on Friday. I was having a really good morning, I had scrubbed down all the kitchen counters and dusted all the shelves and knick knacks, vacuumed floors and mopped, and was enjoying the breeze blowing in through the front door. I was feeling quite domestic and actually having fun? cleaning and dusting.

Then, I went up to get the mail.

And there was a letter from the IRS, something that immediately raises blood pressure and makes your heart pound even before you open it. Which I did and found that they were putting the processing of our return on hold until we send them more information. Okay...

I go back inside and turn on the oven to fix some chicken strips for my lunch salad, then go back outside to sit and figure out this letter, and as I'm sitting there all of the smoke alarms in the house start to shriek, which of course makes my heart pound and blood pressure rise even more, and makes all of the cats run about in total panic, and here I am trying to turn off all of these smoke alarms, which apparently didn't like having the oven turned on.

So, now my head is pounding along with my heart and I go back to the letter, and then go onto the IRS's web site to bring up the form that they are telling me I need to fill out. Which is a form asking how many employees I have. What?

I call the phone number on the letter and am told the wait will be at least 15 minutes for an agent to help me, but I end up waiting well over 30 minutes with the phone on speaker so that I can fix my lunch because by now my blood sugar is also out of whack and I'm getting shaky and I still have a pounding headache from the smoke alarms and letter. I get a real live person on the phone and ask her what is going on and she says she needs to transfer me to someone else who does business stuff.

I am on the phone for another 30 minutes waiting for a real live person and my head is still pounding.

I do finally get someone who helps me figure out what is wrong with our return and how to fix it, which will require a trip back to H&R Block, who did our taxes in the first place. This is all over a $40.00 credit that was on a K-1 that probably should have never been on my K-1 because it is a credit for employee health insurance.

I had a headache for the entire rest of the day but we did go back to H&R Block, who faxed the letter and form they wanted back along with an explanation that it was a mistake. It makes no difference in our taxes owed or refund due, but now we have to wait an additional 6-8 weeks for that refund. Which we were expecting this week.

But, anyway, my headache finally went away by the next day and now if I turn the oven on I turn on the fan and open all the windows and cover my ears just in case.