The Tramp's Story, Part XII: The Imaginary Unit

Con’t from previous post…

I faxed my Lady-signed, employment-verifying letter over to the third number Maria gave me, and called her to make sure it came through okay. It did.

So, you know, that's a huge relief.

Maria said the next step was for her to send it along to Bank of America’s Super Secret Illuminati and Knights Templar Division (which I believe she said is located in the basement of the Heart of Gold building on Yellow Brick Road in Atlantis), and then we wait. Not long. We should expect an owl back with the Oracle's secret message within two days.

Modern technology. What won’t they think of next?

Well, I’ll be damned if I didn’t have an email from Maria almost exactly forty-eight hours later, just like she said. Sort of. An owl had arrived from the Sanhedrin, she explained, but not an answer. The Ouija seemed instead to be spelling out "1099."

“They want to see your forms," Maria said, "just as further proof of your employment." I'm sure she intended this to reassure. "Better send a couple years' worth if you have 'em, to be safe. And then we really, really ought to be all set.

"Oh, I almost forgot! I just got my own fax machine in my office. So could you send them to this new number instead?”

Another number? Certainly! At least that shatters the Illuminati curse! 2-6-3-4 ≠ Skiddoo!

The shocking part, you understand, is not that I went ahead and did what she asked me without question. No. You all ought to be well inured to that sort of shit by now. The truly shocking thing here (and if you know it, sing along!) is that I had the freaking things to send. Right handy, too. On the shelf in the closet in my office.

For a couple years, the cats pooed in that closet. By which I mean to say: it's where the cat box lived. But when the dog arrived in June and the litter box went in the master bedroom (which is really loads of fun, I tell you what) we started using it as a sort of spillover pantry. You don’t want to think about those facts too hard, I know, but I’m only talking about things that come in cans and jars. Maybe the occasional box of pasta. Bag of beans. Old El Paso Taco Dinner Kits that Johnny made me buy last year and has still refused to eat. What? I mopped it first! It’s not like we're eating cooked spaghetti off the floor!

Anyhoo.

On the top shelf of that closet, on the left, behind the cans of whole, peeled, crushed tomatoes, there lay a stack of manila envelopes, all but forgotten. Labeled things like “computer garbage,” “water bills,” and “Dublin House,” they were artifacts from a burst of organizing I accidentally found myself up to my armpits in last spring. And, if I remembered correctly, there was one up there somehow related to the IRS.

There was! Three of them! Labeled “Tax crap” and sorted by year!

Two minutes of shuffling, and I had ‘em in my grubby little mitts. Right there, in black and white, there was cold hard proof for Caiaphus that I am actually employed. See? In 2006, I earned $12,000! $17,000 in '07 and '8!

Ulp.
 

Tell me again, Maria, about how you're going to lend me eleven times what I manage to bring home in a year?

Somebody out there -- I believe it was AtlanticMo -- guessed that this would turn out to be a fifteen-part series. I think that's starting to sound about right.