Chapter 2

Of course, I had to tell my story at swimming this morning. Oh, my, they are SO helpful! After nearly drowning from laughter, they were all busy setting up a schedule to visit us in the federal prison in Atlanta and bring casseroles and desserts and bake files in cakes. And these are my FRIENDS!!!! The internet Bosom Buddies weren't much better - they're going to visit and bring me knitting to do.

When I left coffee, I picked up some "counter checks" now from the bank. It turns out the bank had changed the routing numbers somewhere along the way, and that was the problem. I've talked with our accountant, and she says there's nothing to be done about the IRS to stop their logging in the unchashable check. She e-mailed us another payment coupon, and I'll just send the payment in again. There's still plenty of time for me to get the payment in on time. The IRS will just send me a note saying the check was no good and to send them another one, but I will have already done that. They might charge me a fee, but she wasn't sure about that. If I get a letter and phone number from a "real" person, I'm going to call, and maybe they'll waive the fee.

I'm not quite as panicky about it any more. The accountant said that account numbers and routing numbers sometimes get changed with bank mergers. That wasn't my problem, though - we bank at a credit union, and it hasn't changed in the 23 years we've been here (except the routing number, obviously).

So I'll mail the second check tomorrow, and then all there is to do is wait.