Last night I left an angry, drunken message for the State of California.

"YES. This is Dr. No -- D-O-C-T-O-R N-O -- and I am calling because you people keep SENDING ME LETTERS! You sent me a letter saying that I never filed a 2002 State Tax Return! This is lucridous! Lu�lunacrish. Ludafis��er, DUMB! I WASN�T REQUIRED TO! I saw that chart, too, so don�t pretend like you didn�t send it! I only lived here for THREE MONTHS in 2002! Well, okay, four, but I only WORKED for THREE! And I didn�t earn enough to be required to file! I have responded to THREE NOTICES from you BASTARDS already -- wait, sorry, I didn�t mean to say "bastards", that just slipped out. But I�m getting SICK of it! PLEASE pay ATTENTION to my responses, and I don�t care what YOUR estimate of my total earnings is, because it�s WRONG WRONG WRONG! Stop writing me! GOODBYE!"

You may remember that last summer, I flirted casually with becoming Crazy Letter Writing Guy, which never actually came to fruition. Which is just as well, since that�s not really something that would enhance my chances of landing a date anytime soon. "So, what do you do?" "Me? I write angry letters to various institutions, threatening legal action for whatever reason. Oh, and I own cats. Lots and lots of cats." Anyway, last night, a letter from the State of California caused my ire to peak so profoundly that it actually transcended out of my body and become so acutely overdeveloped that it materialized in solid form next to me. Space and time and the laws that govern our universe hold no sway over the awesome power of my distorted, lunatic outrage.

You see, the State of California has sent me and my Outrage a number of letters indicating that they "think" I "might" owe them some money, based on a nebulous, projected "estimate" of my total earnings in 2002. This number is wildly off the mark. I mean, if my total earnings were a bullseye, this number would be located on one of the extreme outer rings. Of Saturn. Would that I could make that much money in the span of three months time spent temping as a receptionist. The sheer improbability of those logistics would provide me with a lifelong career as a Very Special Guest on The View, and that finance show with Suze Orman.

However, despite the fact that the State of California has multiplied my actual income from that year by 6 (no joke), and is blithely insisting I now owe them accordingly, I am unfortunately not the crackerjack financial whiz-kid that I would necessarily have to be. I have written them back three times now, explaining as much, but they have apparently decided that I am too modest, and rather than actually read my mail, they�re just going to keep sending me forms and shit until I send back a check. Maybe I ought to send back a check with an explanation written on it? At least that way they�d look at it.

So in the light of (sober) day, I decided to try the phone call thing one more time, and ended up speaking to an obviously under-trained individual who was also insisting that I was rich beyond my wildest dreams, because "[his] computer says so". I�m afraid that in spite of my best intentions to keep a level head and get to the bottom of the situation, my Outrage sprinted to the fore like an Olympic hopeful on the home stretch of the 100-meter dash when I realized that this so-called "Help" line operator was equipped to provide me with no assistance whatsoever (other than to direct me to the black hole of interminable hold on a second "Help" line). I sputtered a few choice, unintelligible things to him and slammed down the phone in disgust.

So what�s a guy to do? Now I have to write a strongly worded letter to some unnamed advocate at the Franchise Tax Board who is supposedly going to review my protest (they call it a �protest�, I call it a �remedial class on addition�), and also provide copies of my W-2 forms from 2002 (which I kept because YOU CAN�T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT, Y�ALL! COKE AND PEPSI ARE THE SAME THING! WAKE UP!!), and wait for the next letter to come in two months.

Being Crazy Message/Letter Guy is exhausting work, you guys.

Someone Got Here By Searching For: aaron carter kissing a guy in a picture I�m Watching: E!�s Ultimate Hollywood Blonde. I�m Disgusted By: E!�s disdain for subtlety in favor of in-your-face, Paris Hilton-style sex "appeal".

my last adventure: Call Me Ishmael
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my next adventure: Woman's Best Friend