Stimulate this!

I, like many Americans, have been eagerly awaiting my economic stimulus money. I have spent it several times in my head. I have crunched numbers and allocated just so. I planned to stock up on groceries and meat, buy three emergency gas cards, and get the family passports and still have enough to pay the two small credit cards I have. I figured I’d have a few hundred dollars left over and was considering either an upright freezer or a mini-vacation for my anniversary next week.

My brother said to me on Wednesday that he didn’t thing we qualified for the check because he thinks we’re millionaires. It made me nervous so I broke out the tax file and checked the irs.gov website. We were in line for some easy to come by, ready to be spent, mullah.

Today was the day to get my refund based on the socials. I check the bank this morning and there was nothing there. I checked again at lunch, still nothing. I checked again at 4:30 p.m. Still NOTHING. I started to wonder if there was a problem.

I went to the irs.gov website. Right under the little box holding the socials and dates direct deposits would be made was a blurb that wasn’t there last night. It wasn’t there a week ago. It appeared today and it irritated me:

If filing or preparation fees were deducted from your 2007 refund or if you obtained a refund anticipation loan or other bank product related to your regular tax refund, you will receive a check instead of a direct deposit.

This would have been great to know BEFORE. Before I’d done all that mind shopping. Before I made all those mind lists and did all that mind math. Before I thought I didn’t have to cook tonight!

I hate you IRS and your web updater peons who waited until the last minute to drop the bomb. Selfish.