Physical activity and orgasms are supposed to help with that. I’m sorry–the only cure is a marathon of particularly athletic sex. Hop to.
Serious answer (although I wasn’t particularly kidding about the other one, either): I had a friend who used to get “cramps” so bad she’d be sitting on the bathroom floor, vomiting into the tub. Turns out there were cysts on her ovaries that would explode when she hit the right point in her cycle. If the ibuprofen doesn’t help, get that shit checked out.
Sorry, sorry. I’m as clear as mud today - spent all my brain cells on figuring this debacle out.
So, pre-tax money gets taken out and put in the HS account.
We pay for healthcare expenses out of our regular budget money, and get receipts.
When I get off my lazy ass finally, I make a table and enter the date, provider name, amount charged, amount paid by insurance, and amount paid by us for each office visit, attach the Explanation of Benefits for each, and send it to the HSA company.
HSA company sends us a check. (We can get the full amount we pledged for the year, even if we haven’t yet contributed it all yet. Don’t ask me what happens if he gets fired or something during the year.)
So, essentially it’s a tax-free, time-traveling savings account, which is pretty cool.
And I paid a buttload of money to my physical therapist this year, so we were close to cashing in the full value of the account.
Except it doesn’t exist.
And yeah, we’ve been getting that money in each paycheck (less taxes) anyway, but I didn’t realize it, so I’ve been budgeting it out to auto repair, groceries, etc.
(Update: Hubbie has decided to cash in enough stock options to cover my costs, so at least I don’t have to worry about paying for school!)
Our HSA now has a little change which I only noticed now right after I sent in the paperwork - now to use it for OTC stuff you have to have a DOCTOR’S NOTE. Is that not the stupidest most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Luckily, it doesn’t start that way until January 1 of next year and I also told them to set aside less this year because I didn’t need so much. Seriously. A doctor’s note for NyQuil?
We have this gal in my office (who I’ve posted about before… I shall name her… Ms. Entitled… or should it be misentitled??). Anyway, she takes stuff, steals things outright. Then I have to replace all that crap. Case in point, a mini stapler I keep by the copier so I don’t have to bring my full-tilt boogie stapler with me to reassemble orginals after I make copies.
I’ve bought three mini staplers already in the last 12 months. Last time one disappeared, I went ahead and bought three. Time saver. They’re going to disappear, anyway, might was well go ahead and buy three. They are $3.49 a piece. When I put the latest one out on the copier, I left a post-it: “Do not steal this stapler. They cost $3.49. If you need one, let me know and I will give you the $3.49 to buy one of your own.”
Two weeks go by. Today, one of our missing staplers shows up on her desk with a note: “Nice passive aggressive note on the stapler.” To which I replied:
“If a note gets what I need (ie - the return of things you take) then I stand by it. Everytime something disappears, I have to use <your friend who allows you to office here>'s money to replace it. This is the 3rd of these I have replaced. Asking you directly to return things doesn’t work. But apparently a little shaming does.”
Suck it, bitch. You have stolen from petty cash! And taken paper, and silverware, and notepads, coffee, and walnuts (long story)!! I’m putting my foot down on the mini staplers.
Also, sick to death of IE’s “security” crap with cookies. I really DO want some user names to stick, ok? I don’t want to re-enter them over and over. Yes, I’ve changed the settings, yes I’ve added the site to my favorites list.
Jesus, I swear I will endemnify you, Microsoft. Just let me save my username!
Ah, okay–so you’d been saving up all your receipts and EOBs, only to find out now that you have no one to submit them to. That makes sense, then. I guess the lesson is “beloved husband is a retarded monkey; check the first paycheck of every fiscal year to make sure all the changes went through at Annual Enrollment and the right witholding is in place.”
So, we have a house guest coming on Friday. I was gone for three days, which of course means Hubby had a chance to really mess the place up. No matter, bright and early Monday I’ll get to work on it. Except bright and early Monday I wake up with the flu.
Finally this afternoon I start to feel like I can do some work and I only just get started and my back goes out. Three hours later and much in the way of drugs, it’s still out. Craaaaaap.
Hubby fucked it up, you’re indisposed, hubby gets to fix it.
Problem solved!
Break the copier. Be subtle about it, of course; just “accidentally” put in a ream of onion-skin paper, or heavy grade cardstock. Fill a toner cartridge with Hershey’s cocoa.
When it’s beyond repair, get yourself made part of the team that’s going to find a replacement. Then make it so the replacement has a stapler function built in. 
Yeah. Get him to cash in some stock options, and call Merry Maids.
Seriously, I hope you feel better soon.
Hubby’s the one who works and brings home the bacon…
Thanks! Heh, I’m not sure the house is clean enough to let a maid in!
Oh, the copier staples. The mini stapler is for reassembling the originals after I’ve pulled the original staple out to make copies.
However, I hate our copier and my boss won’t let me get a new one (good guy, but man whatta cheap bastard!!), so I will file away your ideas and someday… maybe… BWA-HA-HA!!!
Could I maybe bother you, though, for devious plots to deal with Ms. Entitled? You seem to have a knack that speaks to me…
The Hungarian language is driving me crazy. I thought Japanese was tough, but it’s nothing compared to this. The verb endings change according to person, number, mood, formality, the type of vowels in the verb stem, and whether the object of the verb is definite or indefinite. And the nouns have so many goddamned cases (illative, ablative, superessive, etc.) that I can’t keep them straight to save my life. And the pronouns! GAH!
I know a lot about Hungary’s history, and they’ve endured a lot of misfortune. But now that I know something about their language, I don’t shed a tear.
1.) My cycle is somewhat irregular since I can’t be on oral contraceptives anymore. So when you told me to just fucking call you to schedule my IUD insertion when my next cycle started, I assumed that you’d… y’know… fucking MAKE TIME for me to come in. Oh, no, it just means that I get to pick over whatever shitty appointment times are left at this short of notice. When you’re only in the office like two days a week. And one of those days is only morning hours. Hey, sorry, not all of us with uteruses get to stay home and play house all day. Some of us have jobs that we just can’t waltz out of and come back to finish later. So now I’m stuck with an appointment that might be after I’ve stopped menstruating already for this cycle (so I’d have to push it back another month), and is the same night that my boyfriend flies in, so (a) I can’t meet him at the airport and (b) instead of having fun with him, I’ll probably be spending the night as some combination of loopy on Valium and cramping painfully. Thanks. So much.
2.) This check request is now weeks overdue. You’re kicking back the resubmitted form after losing the first one because you think something says April, not June. But I looked back over the documentation, and everything is in the correct month. The only reference to April at all was the note that a new passcard was *picked up *in April, which we were then charged for on this month’s invoice. I understand that we offshore a lot of this financial stuff to our Indian offices because you guys are cheaper, but it doesn’t do us any good if you don’t read English well enough to comprehend a basic fucking form. You know, when it says JUNE 2010 AT THE TOP OF IT. Which should fucking tip you off that it’s a JUNE INVOICE. You fucking MORON. If this vendor didn’t like me enough to trust that the check would be coming, our parkers would be locked out of the structure right now.
You’re his wife, not his slave or his maid.
Try Sanskrit some time. It will probably make you feel better.
3.) Fuck you, hormones, for making me a seething ball of rage today.
Stupid bank, took $74 and change from my savings as overdraft protection even though it was not needed because I had a check deposited and the pending charges haven’t cleared but tge deposited check has cleared. But the thing is that $74 isn’t showing up in my checking account, it’s just in limbo, not in my savings or my checking. I really hate when they pull this crap.
I didn’t say I was a slave or maid - indeed, if I don’t clean house, he isn’t even likely to notice. However, since he is the one that works full time, my “job” is to take care of the house, as far as I can.
If you are someone who uses an HSA, then you assume you have this super secret savings account running that you can tap into once you have medical expenses.
Step 1: Money taken out of paycheck before taxes, put into account
Step 2: Medical or child care expenses occur
Step 3: Fill out random paperwork and get money back
With most systems you have until April of the following year to get your money back. So many people (like me) will sit on a stack of receipts and then submit them at once and get a nice big check.
However - if you have NOT been having money taken out, but you think that you HAVE - you might go down a financial path assuming you have cash that you don’t. Even worse, you can’t just write off your medical and child care expenses later on your actual taxes unless you have enough of them to go over the threshold based on income.
I HATES it. Oh yeah - and if you take too much out, you can’t get it back either. You forfeit the money.
My rant - damned dishwasher touch panel has gone to shit. I have to pay for someone to check it out, then determine do I fix the touchpanel on a crappy dishwasher, or do I buy a new dishwasher and this time buy a decent one? I told my wife that if we can keep this one going for under $200, we will. If not - off to the store for a new dishwasher. Looks like we will be out closer to $700 to get a really good quiet and efficient one.
AUGH clueless suburbanites clustering around the train door today, forcing me to shove people aside to alight the train. Let people off before you crowd around trying to get on—is this really a difficult concept? Sure, I’m glad you’re around to see the Hawks parade or the Cubs-Sox game or whatnot, but couldn’t you show a tiny glimmer of politeness and manners rather than glare at me insolently when I say, “Um, excuse me?” while I am obviously trying to get off the train? Better yet, step back and let people off without being asked—come on, it’s Riding Public Transit Without Being A Douche 101.