Today was a day I’d really rather not have experienced.

I feel all groggy from lack of sleep, I can’t focus on anything, and I still have an article due to The Boss Who Thinks I Rock by morning. It’s only 750 words, and not particularly challenging, if I can find the right head space and string words together in some semblance of a coherent fashion.

A/C Guy kept me waiting til late afternoon then rescheduled for tomorrow, so all day I’ve been paranoid that the unit will flood again, and unlike Fuzzy, I can’t climb the steps into the attic to plug the hose back in if it comes out again. Even though it was rainy, it didn’t inspire me to write today so much as it made me even crankier than I already was, and if I’d have been smart I’d have just curled up in bed and worked from there today, but I tried to force myself to get dressed and function outside the coziness of my room. Bad plan.

I also had the distinct pleasure of having to call California’s Franchise Tax Board, because the mailed a Tax Due Notice to my former employers (even though my 2004 tax return provided them my Texas address) claiming I owed them $4,000 and change in taxes and penalties.

So I called them three times, and let me tell you, no one has a slower voice response system, and there isn’t even an option to press zero for a live person in round one. In fact there never is, you have to guess that it might work. Which I did.

Of course, once I got to a live person, which took three attempts and twenty minutes on hold, they said, “You didn’t file in 2005,” and I said, “I know. I didn’t live or work in California in 2005.” And they said, “But you have a real estate license here.” I said, “No, I had a salesperson’s license, and as soon as moved out of state it became null and void because I’m not a broker, and anyway, I sent a form explaining that I no longer lived or worked in California, last year, when I filed my 2005 return, and y’all sent a note asking why you didn’t get one. ”

Their first response was “Oh.”

And their second response was, “Please hold while we check on that.”

And then they came back and said, “So you’re saying you didn’t live or work in California in 2005,” and at that point I really wanted to bang the phone on the desk, but either the phone or the desk might have been damaged, so I refrained, and simply said, “I believe I told you that twice.”

They asked, “Do you live here now?” and I replied that no, I didn’t (even though I’d given them my Texas address and told them that twice as well).

Finally they said, “Oh, we’ll clear this, then, and you won’t be bothered again.”

And I said, “So you’re saying I owe you nothing, just as I said in the first place?”

And the FTB people said, “Yes.”

As if dealing with bureaucrats wasn’t enough for one day, the house temperature is never right. It’s either freezing or sweltering, and I’m afraid to fiddle with anything, and there was a water bug (that’s polite talk for “giant cockroach from hell”) in the bathroom, and I made a pot of coffee and let two cups go cold.

Sigh.
Make that three.

And Fuzzy’s phone is going right to voicemail, so I can’t even hear him tell me that I’m not a hack, and everyone has sucky days and he loves me.