Big-biggity-big

-1) The never-ending saga of TurboTax®:
Last night (Saturday, January 5, 2008) I decided to “ball-park” the Federal income-tax.
“Ball-park” in that I don’t have any 1099s yet, but I do have an Excel spreadsheet with our incomes.
My intent was to adjust Linda’s pension withholding.
Last year, after doing our income-tax, we had to blow her pension withholding clear out of sight, because -a) it was nowhere near enough, and -b) six months had already passed at the too-low rate.
So Linda’s pension withholding is now way too high for 2008 — it would deduct way too much, and the gumint ain’t payin’ interest.
I also have a spreadsheet for Schedule-A, so my ball-park went quickly. Schedule-A was done in about 5-10 minutes.
I also noticed Linda’s electronical pension-credit to our checking-account had dropped significantly between 2007 and 2008.
So I poked around a little.
A medical-insurance co-pay is supposed to be deducted from her monthly pension-payment.
It hasn’t been since April 2006, but suddenly in 2008 they’re doing it.
The significant increase in pension deductions is the exact amount of the insurance co-pay.
“I thought I straightened all that out years ago.”
“They lump-summed the back-dated pension payments, and then billed us for the medical insurance co-pay. I have records of that: $91.47 in April of 2006.”
“Supposedly they were gonna deduct that co-pay from my pension-payment.”
-Exhibit A: December 2007 credit advice; no medical insurance deduction.
-Exhibit B: January 2008 credit advice; has medical insurance deduction.
“It was like that all through 2007,” I said.
“Whoever knew I’d have to check up on them?” Linda said. “It’s amazing Aetna didn’t cancel me.”
“Must be because we weren’t using TurboTax®,”I said; “or our ISP or toothpaste.”
My ball-park lowered the Federal deduction by over $200 per month.

-2) More follies:
The plastical zipper-head on Linda’s jacket exploded into smithereens.
Suddenly her jacket was rendered totally useless — no zipper-function.
“Well, I guess I gotta take the dog to the park myself,” I said (I have before).
Linda was able to dredge up another jacket; so was able to go to the park with us.
But it means drop everything and get her a new jacket.......
“I suppose I could order one online, but if I do, I have to wait for it to arrive, and probably return it for another size.”
“At least at Wal*Mart I get to see if they fit, and not wait five days.”
“Sounds like our ISP again,” I said. Yep; that’s why the zipper-head exploded.
Trying jackets at mighty Wal*Mart one snapped off her wig.

“Big-biggity-big” is something an editor-friend at the mighty Mezz said. If a story was awesome and appealing, and therefore had to run, it was “big-biggity-big.”

“Linda” is my wife.

RE: “Must be because we weren’t using TurboTax®.........” —My siblings all use TurboTax®; therefore I am utterly stupid and reprehensible. I already have work-arounds in place making my income-tax a slam-dunk. I’ve tried TurboTax®, and it quadruples the time needed, so no thank you.

RE: “or our ISP or toothpaste.......” —ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my wireless router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP. (I’m also loudly excoriated by all my siblings for using what they say is the wrong toothpaste [Colgate].)

RE: “One snapped off her wig...... —My wife has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable — she will survive, but is currently hairless because of chemo-therapy.