At the risk of going directly to hell (even with my Get Out of Hell Free card), I'm seriously considering entering the 2004 Hoffman Challenge because it gives me an excuse to use turn some of my sketches into textile goodness.

Hoffman fabric is too expensive for my budget for now, but when we get our tax refund, I'm buying two yards of it and anything I don't use in my entry will be turned into wearable art for the midget.

Yes, I'm saying *when*. I explained via e-mail to Peterson's finance office that all we want is a copy of Himself's W-2 and I'm giving it a week. If I still have nothing by then, I'm calling my Congressman. I'm tired of wasting our accumulated phone cards (we used to have a metric buttload as Himself's coworkers would get them as part of the services payday advance places offer and we'd buy them off them cheaply) in 15-minutes-on-hold spurts alternating between the crappy hold loops at Peterson and Shady J. I've pretty much given up on Buckley because I'm reasonably sure their finance office number goes to a phone that's not plugged in or they would have either answered or gotten a restraining order against us for calling so much.

Incidentally, I can now do a pretty good imitation of the Woman Reading A Script Badly on Peterson's finance hold loop. "If you would like... to see your L... E S, please use MyPay...". I initially couldn't believe they'd use something that awful-sounding on a hold loop, but then I remembered it's government.