Yesterday must have been national bureaucrat day; I had to deal with the post office and the IRS on the same day. One was frustrating and time-consuming. The other was also terrifying. You can probably guess which one.

Nearly two months after filing my tax return – which has been prepared exactly the same way in the same names filing jointly from the same address through the same accounting firm for more than two decades – the IRS suddenly felt the need to confirm our identity.

But after the formal letter that somehow makes you feel as if you’ve done something terribly wrong that might land you in a maximum security prison and all the preparation for the big call, all they really did was have me verify certain items off the tax return.

So, if I was say an illegal alien filing under a false name from a friend’s mailing address, as long as I had a copy of the return I’d filed in my possession, that would have been fine. In other words, they did not verify my identity. Bureaucrats. Sheesh.

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Meanwhile, there was a major power glitch over the weekend that fried the UPS (uninterruptable power supply) that all my smart home equipment is plugged into. So I did a little research, decided on APC, determined which model was right for me, and ordered it on Amazon for two-day delivery.

The morning of delivery day I got a “Sorry we missed you” email from Amazon. I’m like, what? We were there all morning and never have a problem with UPS or FedEx. Turns out it was one of those US Postal Service handoffs I’m sure you’re all familiar with. Except they didn’t actually try to deliver it to my home.

Nope, that would have been too easy.

We actually live in a rural mountain area so there is a big mailbox kiosk at the entrance to our road that serves about 60 families. It’s been that way forever. All the postal people did was determine that it wouldn’t fit in one of the big locked delivery boxes and back to the post office it went.

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After calling the postal people, then contacting Amazon, who also contacted the postal people, I was assured my package would be delivered to my door the following day. Of course that didn’t happen. I ended up calling the post office again. They gave me the cell phone of our mail carrier John. He met me at the mailboxes and handed me the box.

Dealing with bureaucrats does three things to you. 1) It costs you time, time you will never get back. 2) It causes stress, which compromises your immune system and shortens your lifespan. 3) It’s frustrating, which makes what little time you have on Earth miserable. Bottom line: Bureaucrats are a major health hazard.

Never mind weapons and drugs. We should ban bureaucrats. We’d all live longer, happier lives.