Just Another Day in Paradise

Kamikaze birds, no turn-signal usage, and curbside furniture...just a few of my least favorite things. These are what I encountered this morning on my work commute...keep in mind my commute is at max, 5 minutes (3 if I use ridiculous speed and am able to dodge the farmers). First things first: I don't know what is wrong with the birds this morning but I had no less than three dive-bomb in front of my truck while I was driving (not all at once - different places). Thankfully I didn't hit any of them - that would have seriously screwed up my day. 

Next, I'm on 6th Street waiting to make my left turn onto Judson and the garbage truck I'm waiting on (thinking it is going straight) makes its own left turn the opposite direction. "Thanks for using a signal, you moron!" This is typical behavior for a lot of motorists in this town; stop signs, turn signals, functioning brake lights - they are all merely suggestions. Also, I should clarify "garbage truck". This is not the big hulking garbage trucks you normally see with the back roll-up door and garbage masher. No, this is a pickup with box panels attached on the bed. Here, we do have a couple of major players in the sanitation industry that use the big truck I previously mentioned, but we also have a few small-time family run businesses and enterprising individuals who also pick up garbage. Some of these have some nice trucks, not the big behemoths, but suitable for the work on a smaller scale. And then there are those that are using these slapped together panel trucks that look like they should just be dumped right along with the garbage. So professional...

Lastly (at least for this post) curbside furniture.  This is how people avoid going to the dump, or hauling their unwanted household goods to The Beacon (local charity donation point). This is also how young people living on their own without a lot of money furnish their homes. Here's how it works: You have an old couch that you need to get rid of (for whatever reason), but you a) don't have a truck, or b) don't know anyone who wants said couch, or c) it isn't fit for humans any longer so you can't donate it. What do you do? You put it out on the curb and hope someone takes it off your hands for you. If you put a sign on it that says "Free" it might take a few days for it to disappear. If you put a sign on it with a price, it will be gone by the time you get done brushing your teeth. If you don't want to put a price on it, just put it a little closer to the house as if you just moved it outside to get it out of the way. It will be gone once it turns dark. 

So, I hate it when birds or other animals fly/run out in front of me because I can't bear to hit them and more likely than not, I will cause a big ol' gnarly accident to avoid hitting them. It makes me sad  :(  I also hate it when people don't use their turn signals because it can cause accidents or in my case, cause me to yell impolite things and puts me in a bad mood. I hate the furniture on the sidewalks and in the gutters because it looks junky, and it reflects poorly on the town I live in...and also because I can't seem to stop myself from slowing down and looking...and wondering why they're getting rid of such a pretty sofa...then I remind myself - that sofa came from the crazy cat lady's house and it no doubt smells like cat spray, and I'm good. I can stop pondering the mystery - mystery solved!

So this has been a little slice of life in my dusty, Midwest paradise. Pretty typical day really. My day will be complete when the little old confused lady calls me at work to ask me what the date is today.

Taxes and Other Unnatural Disasters

It's tax time - Yay! ...or not! A lot of people who filed with Educational Credits and some other types of credits, got thrown for a loop this year. Because our government is stupid (sorry, but hey! I only speak truth), the IRS couldn't accept Education Credit Form 8863 until February 14, 2013. Anybody who filed prior to that date with that credit had their return held until the IRS could receive it. At the same time, the IRS was cracking down on fraud, so a larger number of returns were pulled this season than in previous seasons. Now if all of that wasn't enough, some tax preparers (H&R Block being the largest, and Jackson-Hewitt and Turbo Tax having smaller numbers of affected people) were using outdated 8863 forms and the IRS's system was reading them as blank, but it wasn't caught until about the first week of March. The IRS had to manually fix those forms, and it caused a delay of epic proportions. People were confused, angry, and in despair, and regardless of what others may think, poor people (and some not-so-poor people) rely on their tax returns for a variety of reasons, so no judging!! 

Our tax return was caught up in this mess, and it was a horrible experience. I would call the IRS to find out what was happening and every time I got a different answer. Some of the people flat lied, and others were rude, and you couldn't trust anything any of them said.  And H&R Block wasn't much better, although less rude. I finally found out what was wrong by doing a Google search. Once I knew, I called H&R Block back to see what they had to say. They acted like they didn't have a clue what I was talking about. A few phone conversations down the road, they promised to call me with progress reports or just to check in and let me know they were "there" for me. None of that happened. I called corporate offices and spoke to a lady who was very nice about filing a complaint and requesting my filing fee be returned to me for unsatisfactory service - they do have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. She explained that a regional manager would be contacting me within 3-5 business days - that never happened either. And I wasn't alone - hundreds of thousands of people who were affected by this and no one was getting any answers. H&R Block finally posted an announcement on their Facebook page, if you can imagine that, and people were furious. Finally in a letter from the C.E.O. of H&R Block on their blog about the middle of March, was posted the real story and accepted responsibility. That should make the class action suit against them easier to do. Week before last, I got $30 back from H&R Block and a hopeful request for me to continue to use them for our tax needs. I don't think that will be happening.

When we got our taxes prepared with H&R Block on February 12th, afterwards we went to Joplin to pick up my husband's new computer, and then we went to Sears to take a look at refrigerators. We found one on sale and it was such a good sale that we decided to put it on layaway, thinking that in 2-3 weeks we'll have out tax money back and can pay it off early. We thought wrong! Every two weeks until we finally got our return on March 28th we had to make a payment on that refrigerator. During that time when our return wasn't received and we didn't know what was happening and then when we knew what the problem was but not when our money would come, we were under such stress! We are in that group of po' folk who use their return to make major purchases (like a refrigerator) or pay off bills, or remodel the house. We were really sweating it, because that bi-weekly payment was killing us. We're talking a $2000 refrigerator @ $300 every two weeks!

Finally on March 28th, we got our money so on Tuesday April 2nd, we took a trip to Joplin and paid off the refrigerator, and bought a new microwave that matched but they couldn't deliver the 'fridge until April 11th. So I had to wait another 10 days to get it. In order to just pay one delivery fee, I had them put my microwave for delivery with the 'fridge - no biggie, right?

Isn't it pretty?

So, this past Thursday Sears came with my new appliances...or so I thought. My refrigerator came, but my microwave was not on the truck. The delivery/installation team was super nice and wonderfully efficient until it came time to install the water line. No compression fitting was to be seen anywhere and it was a necessary little part that allows the water line from the refrigerator to pair with the line running to the water source. Long story short (I know, too late!) Sears is sending a fitting they found in the store along with my microwave this coming Thursday (April 18th). Until then, I have a beautiful new Samsung refrigerator that doesn't dispense water or ice. 

Lot's of room, and a freezer underneath!

Now, back to that letter from H&R Block hoping that they will see us next year for our business: They sent me a crappy $30 when it cost me $220 to file, never did anything they said they would as far as informing me of what was happening, or contacting me, and acted like they didn't know anything was even wrong when I called even though it was all over the news, internet, and papers. No, I'm not going back, but those aren't the only reasons. For the last three years, their service has gone down in quality. I can no longer count on getting the same preparer, let alone an experienced one. This year the woman doing our taxes told me she had just completed her 6 weeks of training on January 21st... :o  I'm fairly certain they hire new people every tax season because other than the owner, I haven't seen anyone I recognize from previous years, and for the last three years, our preparers has had to ask the owner how to do the Education Credit Form. We actually discussed NOT going to H&R Block this year, but then decided to go ahead, thinking it was cheaper than going to a CPA. Wrong again! My boss got his and his son's taxes done at an accountant for less than we paid. So, no, I'm not going back, and it's not just because of one little screw up. Are they solely to blame for the fiasco? No, the IRS didn't help the situation by lying to people, and we already know it's pointless to even attempt to have respect for most government offices, so decisions often come down to "who will jack with me less?" The government will always screw things up - that's a given. Choosing a company to do business with that you can respect is important, and who can respect a company who can't own up to a mistake?

Now I want to close this on a happy note. Remember back this summer when I lost my glasses (see So Much for Karma)? Well I finally got some new glasses. They aren't the same ones, but pretty similar, so I can see good again and they're pretty  :)

Hail Hath No Fury...

I know - it's supposed to be "Hell hath no fury..." but that would ruin my little pun because I'm talking about hail. Last Sunday we had a nasty storm blow through and with it came hail. Now, I live in the Midwest - Kansas - and we are known for large hail, hail the size of golf balls and baseballs. But in the 16 years that I have lived here, the biggest hail I have ever personally seen in our community is about the size of a grape - still rather impressive for a girl from Southern California. 

What I saw hitting my house and bouncing off of my glass french doors, deck, barbeque grill,and everything else, was golf ball size and larger - about the size of a nectarine. I've talked to people who have lived here their whole lives and most of them say they've never had hail that large around here in their lifetime. The picture of the hail with the penny is one I grabbed from the front porch - in a hurry! I didn't want to get beaned and earn myself a possible concussion, so I just grabbed what was available with the door open just a couple of inches. It's not one of the largest ones by any means, but I wasn't going to risk stitches in my head, know what I mean? The other picture is from my front yard. It's hard to see it, but it looks like a bunch of white toadstools just popped up. Some of these were hitting so hard that they exploded on impact.

That Sunday evening my husband was working (he started back with the city Police Dept. in January), I had an assignment due, and a bunch of laundry to finish before school and work the next day, so I and my youngest stayed home from church, otherwise my truck would have been outside during the storm and not safely under our carport in the back. Tucker, as the only member of the family at church that evening, said that several of the stained glass windows got broken and almost all of the storm glass covering the stained glass got damage, and all of the cars in the parking lot have dents all over them. My husband drove his patrol car under the carport and thereby saved it from a lot of damage. All of the other cars except for his and one other had broken lights, glass, and dents all over the place.

The next day driving to work showed a town that looked like it had been through a shootout and lost. We have a few dozen instances of holes in our siding, just one broken storm window, a couple of damaged screens - not nearly as bad a lot of people. Some of these houses with siding look like they were peppered with automatic gunfire. Houses with wooden siding look like they have been sandblasted - most of the paint is gone on the west and north sides of the houses. There are broken windows everywhere, which are being boarded up, and overall there is a lot of roof damage, with blue tarps seen on numerous roofs.

By Friday, our town was inundated with contractors - cars and trucks with ladders attached to them and so much advertising on the vehicles, you'd run the risk of having an accident trying to read it all. We got no less than 8 forms of advertising on our door, and several more in the mail just on Friday alone. There are warnings all over the local news channels and in the papers advising people to thoroughly vet contractors to avoid being scammed. 

We have State Farm and our adjuster came out this morning and met with the contractor we selected and together they went all over the house and the roof. Apparently our roof is totaled, as is the roof on the carport. I found pieces of roofing material in the yard last week so Bobby went up on the roof and did find damage, but he wasn't sure to what extent. I guess it's bad, lol. The adjuster has determined that our roof will be replaced, along with our metal garage door, my french doors on the deck, all of the screens on the west and north sides of the house, the broken storm window, and the siding on the west and north sides of the house. However, if a match cannot be found for the existing siding, then all of the siding will be replaced. The contractor told us that siding manufacturers change the colors and styles every few years, and ours is old enough that most likely we'll be looking at all four sides of the house being done. My problem is that I didn't want to go with vinyl siding again, but insurance will only cover materials that are comparable to what is currently existing on the house. I guess if we get another damaging storm go through that ruins vinyl siding that was just replaced, they might have to rethink that policy. Homes with that concrete-type siding didn't get any damage at all to it. It's definitely worth thinking about.