I am NOT someone to be trifled with.......

So I called the IRS today.....

Now that I'm retired I have copious amounts of free time on my hands. When a thing like filling out income tax forms comes up, I'm on it like a duck on a June bug, especially if I'm getting a refund. Since I have the personal finances program Quicken and the HR Block tax filing program on my home computer, I can compile my filing info very quickly.

Last year, the bride and I did some renovations here at “Rancho Relaxo” so that we might sell the palatial estate, including the South 40, in the foreseeable future. Someone mentioned that there might be a tax credit from the IRS available for the heating improvements we made. That would be listed on IRS Form 5695 and the credit could be as high as $500. You may find this hard to believe but trying to translate the Rosetta Stone was easier than trying to decode IRS Form 5695. Well, I said to myself, I'll just call the IRS Help Line and get help-ed. Using my Providence College education I googled “IRS” and swiftly was informed of the IRS URL ASAP. Now comes the fun part. As a participatory project, why don't you go online sometime in the next 12 years, bring up your browser and type in IRS.gov. Now I'll start the stop watch and we'll see how long it takes you to find the 800 number to call the IRS. Ready.....go. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. La de de la de la. Found it yet? Keep looking, we've got plenty o' time. Dum de dum la de la de dum. TIME'S UP. Don't lie. You couldn't find it could you? It's well hidden. It would be easier trying to find Obama's college transcripts. What do you think they want you to call them and ask them questions? Are you serious? But after 3 days and with the help of a pack of dogs, I found it. So I called the IRS, 1-800-829-1040, for those of you keeping score at home. (Write it down, unless you have “people” who do your taxes for you, then give them the number.)

One ringy dingy, two ringy dingies. (I'm not actually sure what the plural of dingy is.) After the expected request for me to push 1 on the phone for English, there was a long (and I mean long) message in Siri's voice (whoever the actress is who does Siri's voice is killing it in the income department being hired by both Apple and the IRS) telling me that the tax season was here and I should have a nice day and forms can be gotten on the IRS website (good luck) and if I haven't fallen asleep from this message I should press a button to go the next prompt. As in “Press 1 if  you have a question about filing your IRS forms?” I wanted to say no I called the IRS so I could ask, “What's the deal with Nicky Minaj?” I respectfully pressed 1. Guess what I got? Another prompt asking me to press 1 if I needed help with a particular form, press 2 if I needed to know how the bejesus Obama ever got re-elected, press 3 if I needed to know who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp de bomp, and so on. Of course if I needed to repeat that I could simply, oh so simply, press the pound sign on my phone to repeat all that garbage. (# is called the “pound sign” on the telephone. It's called a “hashtag” on Twitter. There aren't you glad we resolved that problem?) I confidently pressed 1. Another message came on informing me that since I had solved the Rubik’s Cube of the IRS's phone tree to that point, the rest of this conversation would be recorded by the NSA since I was either some type of rabble rouser, trouble maker, ne'er do well or someone who could be trifled with, which EVERYBODY knows I'm not.

Never, not once, to this point was there an option to speak to a “live” attendant/agent/minion/unicorn.

Since I had enough provisions, favorable weather conditions, a keen eye, the wind at my back and I had girded my loins (that was more fun than expected), I needed my question answered so I pressed on against formidable odds. After about three more “pressings” and options and other shenanigans and goings on, I got to speak to someone. What a thrill to speak to Miss “Smith” (The names are changed to protect the innocent and/or incompetent). She not only gave me her name but her badge number too so, I assume, if I had trouble with Miss Smith, I could call the Federales and rat her out for not treating me like the wonderful person I am and someone who was not to be trifled with. Now understand Miss Smith was not the person who was going to answer my question, she was going to RE-ROUTE my call to the appropriate department who could answer my question. Since I thought it was probably best to not be in my incredibly snarky telephone mode, I decided to ask her why I needed to be connected to anyone other than the person involved in answering a simple question about the IRS forms. I told her what form I had a question regarding and she said that she would connect me to the law department. THE LAW DEPARTMENT? I was calling the IRS about a form and I'm going to the law department? I picture the law department probably being one floor below men's suits and one floor up from women's unmentionables. Did they finally figure out that the business mileage that I deducted as a business expense in 1971 (and for the remaining 41 years of my stellar sales career) was just a tad inflated? Was I now going to pay the price for my enhanced mathematical indiscretion, perp walk and all? (I was prepared to invoke a version of a previous response from a former President and say, "I did not commit tax fraud with Miss Lewinsky!") These guys could actually trifle with me and it's my understanding that there is significant trifling going on in Leavenworth.  They were THE LAW!!! The phone rang at the Law Department and guess what, it rang and it rang and it rang. Must have been their day off. No laws today. Sorry. Come back tomorrow and pay twice as much for one law and get the second law absolutely FREE. Then I got disconnected. As in back to square one disconnected. Anyone else would have given up, but not me. My forefathers didn't help clear the west so that I could give up after being hung up on. I'm not to be trifled with.  Not me who believes in truth, justice and the American way. So I recreated the “Myth of Sisyphus” (look it up) and I called again.

More prompts. More Siri voice. More pound signs. This time I got Miss Jones (again not her real name but I got a feeling her first name might have been Tamika or Shamika, if you get my drift) and I still question whether it was her real ID number. She told me that there was no one who could answer my question about Form 5695. “We don't do that anymore” she said. So I asked if anyone could answer a question about the 1040 form in general. “Nope” was her reply but if I would go back to IRS.gov and review, for the rest of my life, (my words, not hers) the info provided there, she was sure that I could find the answer to my question. Now I was hoping the NSA was actually listening because I just then turned on the snarky switch. It wasn't pretty for Miss Jones from that point on. I'm pretty good at “snarky” and trust me I was at my “snarkiest” for a good minute or two. Ultimately I thanked her profusely for not providing me the assistance that I had come to expect from a major branch of the US government that I support with my hard earned tax dollars for lo these many years and I pressed the button on my phone ending the call very violently just to show her I meant business.

The local IRS office is about 17 miles away and I'm planning to drive there to see if their representatives can be as profoundly inept face to face as they seem to be over the phone.

I will not be trifled with in person either.

Stay tuned.

Until next time.........