In between mowing and fencing, I have been struggling with paperwork… and automated phone menus. This has been the year of trial by paperwork. Our town taxes, our federal taxes, and our state taxes have all been a mess — each with different problems, none of which was caused by me. In each case my forms were submitted promptly and correctly. It would be hard to overstate the hours and hours and hours I have spent trying to disentangle all the errors. Or to overstate the stress.
Now it is health insurance. With his retirement, our policy must be switched from DH’s name to mine. One would think this would be straightforward, but there has been a problem with DH’s Medicare number — only one line in the long form, but an important one. I have spent more hours on this.
I often wonder how people who are less literate can possibly fight through the modern maze of official forms. I am a person who is comfortable with print. One might even say that reading and writing are my only significant skills. Yet this year has been an unrelenting nightmare.
Thankfully, I had a breakthrough this morning and am hoping I may have figured a way out of the latest challenge.
Fairhope Farm 