April 5-6

Sometimes things happen that are simply so incredibly stupid you can do no more but shake your head at the ineptitude. It's the kind of stuff you could send to a well-known newspaper feature and they would return it saying "We Don't Believe It". Several months ago my mother paid a tax bill for which she was told she'd receive a receipt in the mail. She was getting her information together recently to have her taxes done and realized she never got the receipt. Since it was a school-related tax I decided to call the athletic office at McCaskey and speak to the secretary, her name is Wanda and I've known her since she came to JPM in 2015. I explained the case and that I knew it wasn't necessarily her bailiwick but maybe she would know who I could contact in this matter, she suggested I call the school district's business office. They told me that the billing for this tax had been outsourced to an independent agency, they gave me the number and I called them. They said they could mail a copy of the receipt and my mother would have it in about a week, since this was April 5th and the tax deadline is on the 15th I can see where that could be a problem. I asked if I could come to their office and get it in person and they said that would work, the only problem is that the nearest office is in Exton, about forty miles east of Lancaster. I immediately got into the car and made the trip, since there was nothing else going on and my mother was at her wit's end I figured to get it taken care of once and for all. Luckily I had a fair idea of where I was going, all I had to do was pinpoint the exact address. It's been quite a while since I was in that area but I'm reasonably familiar with it from passing through on trips to Philadelphia when I was younger. I have to give them credit, when I arrived they had it ready to go so I was only there for about three minutes. With it all I was gone about two hours or so, the drive back was a little longer with the later afternoon traffic figured in. They say all's well that ends well but the fact that I had to pull teeth to get something that was supposed to be delivered months ago is a wonderful example of corporate bungling at its finest. The Royals finished the road portion of the regular-season schedule with a win Norfolk on Friday evening, the clubs meet at the arena on Saturday night. Take care, thanks for reading.