Well, much to my surprise, my much-detoured IRS check has finally arrived. Let me recap;

1.) I have lived at the same address for a very long time.
2.) My original IRS refund was decreed ‘Undeliverable’ by the Post Office, and returned to the IRS.
3.) The only way the IRS could think of contacting me to inform me of the above problem was to mail me a letter, to the ‘Undeliverable’ address, explaining their difficulties.
4.) I phoned the IRS at one of the telephone numbers on their letter and had a chat with some sort of government clerk who insisted on being called by his last name.
5.) “Mr. Smith??? couldn’t think of any way to address the problem other than to resubmit the check, and hope that it came through ‘somehow.’
6.) The check actually did arrive in the mail. Delivered by the same postman, to the same postal address, which last month had reduced the original check to ‘Undeliverable’ status.

Now, it seems to me that just repeating an operation that has already failed, and hoping for the best is no way to run a railroad. Or mail me money. I suppose that this is more of a comment on me. I mean “Mr. Smith??? was right, wasn’t he? He did exactly the same thing that failed before, changed nothing, but it worked this time. My doubts that he had thing completely under control were clearly without merit.

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