Entering the Twilight Zone

 

Last year I had an accountant that was preparing my taxes.  She told me she would file for an extension.   I waited to hear from her, but as fall came and went, I began to wonder.  I called, but she didn't return my calls.  Then her number was disconnected.  I drove to her office, which was in the next county.  The place where her office had been was an empty storefront.  ??  I went next door and asked if they knew what had happened.  They said she had gone out of business.   Now it was too late to find someone else and file my taxes.  

This year I found a random listing for an accountant and told him my sad story.  "Oh, yes.  Debbie and her husband had an argument and he told her to stop preparing taxes."  Weird.  I told James I felt like a deer in the headlights.  James spoke reassuringly about how everything was going to be OK and he would fix it.  "Panic over taxes is common place."   That was probably around April.  I suppose James expected me to bring in some sort of tax documents.  I had no documents.  That was a lot of the trouble.  What happened to them?  I could only speculate.  I got a call from James, who left a cryptic message, "Helene, please call me."   I did call, and agreed to be in his office on Wednesday.  But Wednesday came and went.  Finally I decided to go today.  

I couldn't find his office to save my life.  I had been there before and thought I knew where it was.  It had disappeared.  I had an address, but there were no street numbers on any buildings.  It was bizarre.    There was a festival in town, and people were milling around in the street as if it were closed to traffic.  I barely missed several people who had leapt in front of me.  Well, enough of that.  Finally I went home and called James again.   James described his location.  It was past "the church," across the street from "the laundromat," past "the car lot," and "the gas station."  So it could be anywhere.  Oh, and "the dime store."  He told me the names of the streets on the intersection.  I was drawing a blank.  

I looked up all the laundromats in town on Google to try and get my bearings.  I got the strangest directions.  Oh, I made a mistake on my address. So I struck off again to find the mysterious accountant.  Besides not seeing any building numbers, there were no street signs either.  No wonder this was so confusing.  Could that possibly be the building?  It sure didn't look familiar.  Thankfully it was the building, but it was so strange how far it was from where I remembered it being in the past.  

I sat in James' office, pretty much shooting the breeze for a while.  Finally he asked me to give him a power of attorney.  What!!??  "Just for the IRS."  I could see how this seemed to be the only way, having no documents to go by.  He said he wanted to see what the IRS was expecting me to report.  OK, fine.  

He told me that the IRS didn't usually send anyone to prison.  "But be sure to never, ever say to the IRS, 'income taxes are unconstitutional.' Then you WILL wind up in prison."  

I'm safe at home now, for the moment.