Easy Come, Easy Go

I walked down the block to liberate our mail from the locked cell box the postman uses to imprison it the other day.  After grabbing the various fliers and envelopes I walked back to the house in a dazed stupor.  You see, there was a very official looking envelope from the IRS and I open these at once.  Inside the envelope was a rather large, for this household, and totally unexpected check. 

I had mailed our self-completed 1040 and a personal check for what I though was the balance due to them several weeks before.  I hate doing that.  Our government has a way of using my money for things I don't want or need.  Really, is there any reason I want to know just why people barf after ingesting a pint of hot soy sauce?  I'm sure we're studying just exactly that or something very similar, and it's probably costing about forty million bucks to learn the answer.  Don't get me started,  I'm not sure there are enough electrons in my computer for me to finish that particular rant.  Besides, you've heard it from more capable ranters than I. 

Well, I've been doing my taxes all by myself since starting work while still in high school, and thought I was completely capable of filling out the forms.  This year, though, our lives changed somewhat and we sold a bunch of stuff that we had planned to use at some later time.  It complicated our return and instead of using the tax tables to determine the amount we owed, as I have done since the Indians first sold us Manhattan, I should have completed some sort of worksheet to do that.  In other words, I screwed up and learned the hard way I'm more capable of fixing the dog's dinner than I am of doing a complex tax return. 

I also learned the government is COMPLETELY able to check each individual return it receives.  They checked mine, which was for a very modest amount and in no way special, and corrected it for me.  If there are any reading this who are thinking they're gonna pull a fast one when they file their taxes, beware.  Be very aware.  Uncle must have infinite resources with which to check a finite amount of returns.  Be careful what you do.  In my case, after checking my work, they sent me a check that was about five times what I sent them. 

That's the Easy Come part of this post and I'm betting your gonna be happy about the Easy Go part.  It's much shorter.

Carolyn's body comes equipped with a digital thermostat.  There's really no other way to explain her ability to freeze at 69 degrees and roast when it's 72.   I've tried for years to fool her into thinking she's comfortable with the thermometer set to 68 in the winter and 74 in the summer to no avail.  She knows when I've dinked with the thermostat in an effort to lower our energy usage, and usually asks if I've monkeyed with it within an hours time of my doing so.  It's uncanny. 

Imagine the concern I felt when I first realized we had purchased a house with no mechanical means to cool it.  It is a fact the summer temps here will exceed those in the cool New Mexico Jemez mountains to which we have become accustomed, and she languished during the mildly warm months there.  This house is located in an upscale subdivision and was built in 1998, so I assumed it came with all the toys.  I never thought to ask. Duh. 

Here comes the really cool part.  Last week, for the first time in what seems to be several centuries, everything came together at once to solve a knotty problem in our lives.  Home Depot had a sale on Trane Air Conditioners, Uncle Sam sent us some money, and the telephone worked!  I called, the guy came over on Friday to look around, and today, we signed the papers.  The equipment to cool the house will be installed next week! 

Also, there's a little over a hundred bucks left over and it's been a while since we've gone to dinner.  How cool is that!