Did I mention it was not an error in our favor?
With considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth, we managed to set up a payment plan, cut corners to subsidize said payment plan, and the issue was neatly wrapped up, beribboned, and sent on its merry way around Christmas. Or so we thought.
The collections notice arrived a few weeks ago. After a few minutes of stunned silence, followed by slightly more minutes of non-stop and somewhat repetitive profanity, superceded by frantic text messages between myself and the tax errorist, and culminating in a flurry of printing out of online bank records - I pulled myself up by my Big Girl Knickers, poured myself a glass of lemonade, and called the 800 number.
27 minutes into the hold time, the hold music, an incessant repetition of an eight-bar phrase of easy listening, abruptly let up, and the phone started ringing.
"Aha!" I thought. "Not nearly as bad as I expected!"
But that was premature. Instead of hearing the message in English reiterating how important my call was to the IRS, and that I should stay on the line as calls would be answered in the order received, I instead heard the same message - in Spanish. The music resumed.
After approximately 43 minutes on hold, I began a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. After failing to correctly identify the eight letter name of the "Musician with 1974 album "Here Come The Warm Jets" (Brian Eno, who would have known?) at minute 54, I decided to answer e-mails.
At one hour, 12 minutes, I had run out of e-mails that required answers, and I was irritated that I was missing my usual afternoon walk. To get some exercise, I decided to stand up and do a little cha-cha and paso doble to the hold music. By one hour, 35 minutes, I had worked up a decent sweat. At one hour, 57 minutes, I tripped over the dog, and decided to stop dancing and get myself some olives and a glass of red wine.
Finally at two hours and four minutes, the IRS agent came on the phone, and gave me his badge number in Spanish, and his name, Ernesto. Fortunately Ernesto spoke English as well as Spanish. Within five minutes, Ernesto had the issue straightened out, and was ready to transfer me to Accounts Payable so that I could explain that our account should be taken out of collections. And after giving me the direct number "just in case" he transferred me over - and after five rings, the same hold music started up again...
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