Reports Of My "Lateness" Have Been Greatly Blown Out Of Proportion

Sweet Gummi Mary! If this short couch could talk! IF it could talk, after first saying, "Get your ample rumpus offa me!" it would then tell the accurate tale of events which unfolded Wednesday, but began on Tuesday evening.

 

It's time to pay the yearly tax bill(s). We get them all in a fat envelope from the county assessor. One bill for personal property taxes, and seven bills for real estate taxes. Only THIS year, there should have been EIGHT, because of Pony House. 

 

If you own the real estate any part of the year, you're supposed to pay the tax for the portion you owned it. That's different from personal property, like your cars, which you don't pay unless you owned it on January 1 of the tax year.

 

Anyhoo... at the closing for Pony House, part of the contract included money for the real estate taxes on Pony House. Since the bill did not come to us, Farmer H figures it went to the previous owner. Who has no obligation nor incentive to pay the tax bill. It's our responsibility. The same thing happened to us when we sold a couple of lots to a guy who lived next door to them, and wanted to purchase. WE still got the tax bill. Farmer H told me not to pay that one, and he was kind enough to call the new owner and let him know that the bill came to us, so the guy would realize he needed to pay the tax. It wasn't much on those lots, probably less than $15.

Anyhoo... Farmer H said that instead of mailing in our tax payments as usual, I should just give them to him and he would pay them when he went to the courthouse to ask for the Pony House tax bill. Made sense to me. You know the state of mail delivery these days...

I also wanted to redeem my Series EE savings bonds before the end of the year. Our savings institution (which is the only place I could find that will redeem savings bonds now) is catty-corner from the courthouse. AND Farmer H goes there once a month this year to get our weekly cash allowance, rather than pulling it out of our bank account.

"Since you'll be going over to Bill-Paying Town about those taxes, and to get our cash, I could ride along and redeem my bonds."

"That's fine. I plan to go on Wednesday. I'll be working at the house until my helper leaves. He has a doctor appointment at 1:00. You can come by, and we'll go."

"What time should I get there?"

"You could come at 1:00."

"That's pushing it a little. I don't want to get up EARLY!"

"Well, you should be there no later than 2:00."

"I can LEAVE here at 1:00, and be there at 1:30."

"Okay. That works."

So... I was running on time to get there at 1:30. It takes about 20 minutes. I went out the Mansion door at 1:00. Then I had to move all my junk mail catalogs off the passenger seat of T-Hoe. So I put them in a trash bag and onto the back seat.

When I got to the junction of the county blacktop road and the lettered highway, a man had parked his pickup truck at the stop sign, and was walking around the bed, tying in a mattress. Heh, heh! He had a MATTRESS in the BED of his pickup truck! I didn't find it so funny at the time. I waited a couple minutes, then had to pull into the other lane to get around him, hoping nobody would be turning in there. They didn't.

I took the Lake Road, which comes out by my mom's old bank and a former Casey's. Of course there was a car waiting to make a left turn. SO much traffic. I gave Farmer H a call at 1:26, to say I was running a little late. It took a while for that Lefty to get out of the way. Then once I made my right turn onto the main road to Pony House, I was behind all that traffic. There are two stop signs. I bet there were 12 cars ahead of me. Stop. Move. Stop. Move. 12 times!

When it was almost my turn at the second stop sign, a police car came at us in the other lane, lights on, leading a FUNERAL PROCESSION! That means you pull off the road out of respect, until all the cars with their lights on have passed by. Except I couldn't pull over because of the sidewalk light peninsula. But I stopped.

Whew! Only about two miles to Pony House. I made it there by 1:38. Farmer H seemed out-of-sorts. I asked him where we were going first.

"To do your bonds, I guess! It'll take a while to get over there. They'll be closing at 3:00!"

"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure they're open until 4:00. Why didn't you tell me they close that early? I could have been here sooner."

"I thought you'd be here in plenty of time! I didn't know you'd be so late!"

"I'm not late! Well. Okay. I'm 8 minutes late. But I had some obstacles that never happen if I'm not supposed to be somewhere on time."

"You're more than 8 minutes late! You were supposed to be here at 1:00!"

"No I wasn't! It was 1:30! I TOLD you that on the couch last night! That 1:00 was too early for me, and I'd LEAVE HOME at 1:00, and be here by 1:30. Which I should have been. Why in the world would I have called you at 1:26 to be nice and say I was running a little behind, if I was supposed to be here at 1:00??? I would have called you before 1:00. You don't make any sense. You never listen to me! You were watching that stupid homesteading show with that weird Alaska guy who leaves his shirt unbuttoned like a swinger."

"Whatever..."

Anyhoo... we got to our financial institution right at 2:00. There's much more to THAT story... but while carrying out our business there, Farmer H discovered that they were open until 4:30.

He's such a drama queen.