When I speak at an Event and sell copies of my book, No Ordinary Child: Unlocking the Leader Within Your Child, state law declares that I have to acquire a seller’s permit and pay tax on any sales that come to my book table.  Sigh.  So, after paying the editor, the publisher, the printer, the shipping costs, the art guy, the accountant, the computer tech, the gas and/or airfare to get to the Event, the booth rental where we sell our books and family resources, the hotel room where we sleep to attend the event, the overpriced food we eat while we’re on the road, the advertising, – need I go on????  I could! Did I mention the tax portion I also paid to each of the above? Then, the state insists upon carving their chunky slice of the pie on each and every sale of each and every item.  (Can you see why I’m getting so filthy rich?!?!?!  I envy the lifestyle I’m supposedly living )  Since I’m new to the state of California, I recently learned a new lesson – I must confess – the hard way.  Tax is due and payable 30 days after the event.  30 DAYS????  Eee gads. 

That barely gave me time to get packed up, get home, unpack and conquer the laundry pile that had been accumulating, go to the grocery store to buy food for the starving family awaiting me and plan the next meal, correct their math papers and other homework done while I was away, go through the mail and answer its demands, buy the gift card for the baby shower and sign the card meaningfully AND address the card and find a stamp, get to church for prayer meeting, host a dinner party, buy the birthday present for whoever, prepare for the out-of-town house guests’ impending visit, create the lesson plans and chore charts for the new school year, work through the pile of paperwork and deadlines for next year’s speaking events, tally up the taxable sales from the recent Event and read the fine print on the back of the tax form. 

Before I knew it…I was late. Gulp.  The ’self-explanatory, easy-to-file form’ stupefied me.  I get dizzy trying to interpret the legalese on forms.  I’m not wired for forms!  When I approach a form with a black pen that cannot be erased, I begin to hyperventilate.  Ask my husband.  I figured by the time I translated this particular form into common layman’s English, I could be jailed for tax evasion.  OMGosh.  I held my breath and dialed the phone number on the top of the form, waiting for the Gestapo to answer my call.  I entered the maze of “press 1 for…press 8…press 29….hold for 30 minutes with a smile on your face and listen while the recording tells you all the other things you might owe tax on”…Suddenly…drum roll please…’*Bob’ announced his presence. 

Bob wasn’t the kind of guy who ‘comes out to meet you’.  I apologized at the outset for being challenged by forms, new to the California state system, and in dire need of assistance to get my taxes paid QUICK before I’m arrested.  I heard no mercy in his tone.  All business.  Strictly business.  As I asked him to walk me thru the form’s copious ‘blanks’ and confusing instructions, he became frustrated (although I must say Bob struck me as a perpetually frustrated man from the moment we ‘met’).  His voice tightened.  “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!” he bellowed.  His irritation intensified with my continued uncertainty and confusion.  His indignation exacerbated my form-paralysis.  I became utterly incapacitated by his irascibility, which further annoyed him. 

Suddenly profanity escaped his lips as he declared that he DID NOT create the %#*! form and would I “just fill in the blanks as it’s perfectly self-explanatory” and then accused me of “making it 10 times harder than it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  I had to agree with him on that point, but I gently reminded him that I had initially warned him of my tax-form-challenged personality and I was appealing for his help.  I said, “Bob, I bet there’s been something you had to do for the first time and you were really nervous and stressed about it and you needed help.  I’m just not a tax-wired-sorta person”.  I felt faint.  I was shaking and laughing all at the same time.  I desperately longed to hang up the phone and find relief, but alas I was stuck.  He had me over a barrel.  He had my social security number and all my personal details.  HE COULD FIND ME!  aRGHghghahaahhh! “LADY, if you’re gonna do business in the state of California”, he barked, “you better get a tax chart and figure this stuff out or, or, or…(crucifixion? guillotine? jury trial?) .  I assured him I would do just that.

I was really tempted to register this incident on the handy-dandy little blue form included in my packet, entitled, “How Are We Doing?” where I could have detailed to the management Bob’s bad-boy behavior and discrimination against me, a poor, over worked and over taxed, numbers-and-forms-challenged individual entirely humiliated and abused by this ‘civil servant’.  But I decided to give him a break. After all, each of us has been in a place of utter frustration with someone, somewhere, and at a weak moment expressed that frustration in an ill-tempered manner.  I imagine I’m one customer he won’t soon forget.  Giggle.

*The name has been changed to protect the guilty!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 2:43 am and is filed under Life in the Fishbowl: ministry wives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.