In a Nutshell

This cartoon succinctly describes our recent home life here at WTF.






Is someone spying on us?

Something Stinks in Camarillo!

We are still back east finishing up the great "You ruined my spring break" college tour. Last night I went online to check our bank account and make sure our tax checks cleared. They did. Quickly, of course. I also noticed three debit charges to our account from Ralphs, Vons and Hugo Boss in Camarillo, Ca. They were from Chizz's debit card. Now if you know Chizz, you know that he doesn't really grocery shop, unless you count beer, and if you looked at his wardrobe, you know he doesn't shop at Hugo Boss. And since I knew he was sitting about 2 feet away from me, I knew he wasn't in Camarillo.

We called our Bank immediately. Well immediately after about 10 minutes trying to find a line that a human would answer, not a recording. Hmmmm. Another rant for another day! The Bank employees indicated that they could tell that someone had actually swiped a card for these purchases. The persons that did this probably have the ability to clone a the card once they have a number. If you believe the time stamps on the debits, they took all the money in one day within about an hour or so. Fast work So the Bank had to block Chizz's card. Not fun while you are on a trip but since I am here, I can use my card. It is just lucky he isn't on a business trip somewhere, as it is going to take about 2 or 3 business days to get a new card to him.

So we have to wait for a few days for them to correct this. I have no doubt they will, I have loads of proof Chizz was in Philadelphia, not Camarillo. Eventually we will get our $700 back, I will make sure. So if you see a well dressed, well fed man in Camarillo calling himself "Chizz Whineberg", call the authorities. After of course, you say to him "Sir, I know Chizz Whineberg , Chizz Whineberg is a friend of mine and you are no Chizz Whineberg". Thank you.

Done

With our taxes, that is. It is the first time I have had to do them in years. Now before you go and report me to the Treasury Department, there is a reason. As part of Chizz's overseas assignment, they provided someone to do our taxes for us. Expat taxes are fairly complicated, foreign income, 2 bank accounts, taxes in your home country, credit for taxes in the new country etc. It is all pretty much above my head. So for the past few years including a few after we got back, they did our taxes for us. This year we were on our own, which meant I was on my own.

Usually our taxes are fairly straight forward but this year we had a little issue with one of our investments (don't I sound like Warren Buffet?). And even though the monetary amount of this investment was pretty small, making sure I did it correctly on my taxes took 2 days of research and calls to both the IRS and Franchise Tax Board. And even then, I am not so sure. But I did it and time will tell, if the IRS and Franchise Tax Board agree that I did it correctly or if I didn't, whether they really care.

Usually I am a last minute filer even if we aregetting money back. Now not usually a-driving-up-to-the-post-office-at-midnight-on-April-15 kind of late but in a normal situation, I probably wouldn't have sat down until this weekend to do our taxes. But on Saturday we are leaving to go college touring with Snake to Washington DC and Philadelphia. Snake doesn't leave for college for another year and a half, but we are trying to get some ideas of schools he would like. Since right now he is convinced that college for him will be out of our state, and somewhere near a big city but not in Florida or anywhere else in the South, we are trying out some big cities and colleges to see if anything looks interesting.

So off we go. It is probably a good idea to do this early. Before you know it, Snake will be off to college and I will have to start my federal prison term if the IRS and Franchise Tax Board don't agree with my assessment of our tax situation. See, now I sound like Bernie Madoff.