Internal Revenue Service Gone Wild, Volume 1

I finally build up the nerve to call the IRS today about the back taxes I owe, which to me is akin to allowing a Sumo wrestler to give me a Brazilian wax with turpentine, an exacto knife and a roll of duct tape.

After a long string of automated commands, such as “if you make more than $100,000, press 1 for your instant direct deposit refund and free round-trip tickets to safe and sunny Simi Valley” and “if you make less than $30,000, please push 5 and donate all of your savings, or first born, to Karl Rove,” I got a *human* voice.

“This is agent 4584952.”
“Hi agent 4584952, this is Social Security number 22-222-2222.”
“Right…(sound of keyboard tapping) 22-222-2222, it looks like we have some things to discuss.”
“Affirmative agent 4584952.”
I pause to hallucinate that I’m actually Grace Jones about to parachute off the Eiffel Tower to escape the evils of the members of Duran Duran, who are intent on blowing up the landmark with a Casio keyboard, but then I remember that the only mission I’m on is to stop the IRS from seizing my wages and sending me fat letters that come in handy when one is looking for doorstops and instant nervous breakdowns.
“Hello…22-222-2222…would you like to make a payment today?”
“Well, 4584952, it appears that I do. May I do that with a credit card?”

4584952 then puts me on hold to get me the toll free payment number, and I’m expecting Musak like Whitney Houston belting out some Olympic drivel or a snipet from the Bruce Willis blues concert in Iraq. Instead, a recording informs me that the caller may be subject to delay, as many IRS operators “are busy providing support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, for victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

As I contemplate how amazing it is that advanced communication technology, which didn’t seem to function during the hurricane, has now reached such a level of efficiency that front-of-the-line disaster workers are simultaneously able to perforrm tax audits, 4584952 emerges fresh from the trenches of Operation Trent Lott Residence Rescue to give me two toll-free numbers I can call to make payments. While I could not pay my back taxes on the first number, I was given the option to furnish my credit card number and talk to horny, wet co-eds. In addition to pegging me as a tax evader, 4584952 must have thought me a bit of a MILF lover as well, as the second number offered lusty housewife action @ $2.99 a minute.

As neither of the toll-free numbers offered me the opportunity to make a steamy hot monetary injection into the IRS’s bureaucratic tunnel of love, I called 4584952 back and got 6783553, who apologized insincerely and gave me a third number that landed me with a carpet cleaning company whose receptionist basically called me a moron and hung up.

I called the IRS again, and spoke to 0045123, who apologized for 4584952 and 678553 and gave me the correct number: 1-800-2PAYTAX, not to be confused with 1-800-HOTMUFF or 1-800-CLNSHAG.

See you in Canada Alanis! By the way, isn’t it ironic? Dontcha think?

I feel like the floor of a taxicab

Early Saturday evening near Bryant Park, I saw my first menacing New York sky, which immediately made me think of Ghostbusters. As I looked down the block for the Stay Puft marshmallow man, I mentally plotted Ghostbusters III as a fashion week terror-fest ending with ripped hemlines and Karl Lagerfeld's wrinkled, orange body submerged in a pool of green slime.

There was also the botoxed gentleman hosting a garage sale on the stoop of his Village apartment who claimed that Warhol never impressed him much. We bought the diaries from him for a buck anyway, even though he said that Warhol was boring at clubs, and that all he wrote about in his diaries were cab fares. If that is indeed true, I can understand why as I've already gotten into tiffs with several New York cabbies who "forgot" to turn on the meter then proceeded to try and overcharge me, which usually ends in me sputtering obscenities in English and the driver swearing at me in mystery languages.

The burning canine paw smell of New York streets is slowly dying, and this morning I actually smelled something *pleasant* on the streets of New York. Nonetheless hard to identify, the change in smells must mean the leaves will change soon, and flip-flops will be replaced with scrunchy boots and long scarves, and for once, my time will be marked by seasons rather than the ever-present San Francisco fog.

Winter is also when I will faithfully and poetically describe the lives of pedicurists in such a fashion that I will finally be published in the New Yorker for my witty and incisive prose. Or, I may find myself holed up in the tiny apartment armed with whiskey, 80s records and a sewing machine and finally create the lovechild of Cyndi Lauper and E.T. for the good of humankind.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Larry's still gone, Aunt Flo is in town and the bad, bad drag queen from Saturday night has been hauled off to the pen.