Today's Update

Yesterday, I received my first mailing from SSI in, oh, I don’t know how long. The fact that I received this is, of course, my own fault. I had just been thinking about how, thankfully, I hadn’t heard anything from SSI lately. Obviously, this was a mistake on my part. I shouldn’t have thought about it, at all.

But I did, so here we are.

The mailing I received was thanking me for reporting Sam’s income for the month of November and it stated that I will be contacted "shortly" about adjustments to Sam’s income.

I had a couple of questions about this. I should probably have even more questions than just a couple, but since I don’t know what I’m doing, only a couple sprang to mind.

My first question was, do they know that Sam is still a student (please see cover sheets to my faxes and, hopefully, notes from my many, many phone calls on this very topic)? I won’t go into a lot of detail here (because I have before and I don't fell like it right now) but basically, the fact that Sam is still a student negates the issue of wage adjustment. So, that's Question One.

Question Two is, I've been reporting Sam’s income for several months, so why am I just now receiving this paperwork? Which I guess leads to the implied Question Number Three which is, should I have been receiving this type of paperwork right along?

Rather than wait for the anvil, currently hanging over my head by a fraying rope, to fall on me, I tried calling SSI right away.

By this point, it was close to the end of their day but I figured it was worth a try.

I made it through their comprehensive voicemail system - only to reach the brick wall recording, telling me that all representatives were busy and to please try again later - and then it hung up on me.

With only a couple of minutes until they closed, I had no choice but to let the rope continue to fray until morning.

So, I called again this morning and amazingly, AMAZINGLY (!), I waited almost no time at all (!) before I was able to talk to a polite and helpful (and no, that’s not sarcasm) SSI representative.

After an arm’s length of security questions (to make sure I am who I say I am) and another arm's length of more security questions (to make sure Sam is who I say he is), we had a long phone conversation, where she said, among other things, that if I think I’m buried in paperwork now, just wait until Sam's no longer a student. (I believe her phrase was something along the lines of, “You’ll be able to wallpaper your entire house in no time, with all of the paperwork you’ll be getting.”)

Aside from that helpful anecdote, she also told me what information I needed to re-fax and to whose attention I needed to re-fax to - all of which has since been done.

Now, there’s nothing to do but sit back and relax. And to not think about how smoothly everything is going. At least, until next time.