The rigmarole to which I’m referring is getting taxes filed. Normally, I’m the kind of guy to file using the Interweb. However, this past year was different because I got myself hitched. Since the (un)fortunate woman who’s become my bride isn’t from this country, there are quite a few hoops that need to be jumped through, or set on fire, to get everything sorted.

We were told when we last went to the local IRS office that we needed to provide a little letter from Social Security saying that she’s not eligible for one of their special numbers. So today after I slept in to try and shake off some residual lethargy and soreness from this weekend, we headed out to the closest Social Security office, located in Norristown. We waited for about half an hour before the woman who saw us provided the letter without much prompting – we pretty much just had to tell her my wife’s a foreigner.

So we headed back to the IRS office, where we were informed we didn’t need the letter we’d just spent a good hour of our afternoon acquiring. Still, all of our forms were in order and there were no problems with my wife’s Canadian passport, so the federal return was filed without much fanfare.

Now I need to tackle the state return. And if there’s any bit of financial paperwork more convoluted and tedious than a federal tax return, it’s a Pennsylvania state tax return.

I’m actually kind of looking forward to being back at work tomorrow.