Confusion Is My Middle Name

When I first arrived in the United States I had to contend with some completely baffling things that were just beyond my realm of comprehension. Like syrup on French toast (this is so wrong, French toast is savory, people!), driving on the right-hand side of the road and people spelling things in funny, misshapen ways.

And of course, filing tax returns. I had never done my taxes in my life and didn't have the foggiest notion how to start. It sounded like something that would involve a calculator the approximate size of a saloon car and a team of bespectacled men with furrowed brows, taking up lodging in my living room for a month and sighing a lot. Doing taxes is something as foreign to me as making out with an alligator (although there was that one time in the Keys after the consumption of much tequila….oh wait, no, that was a crocodile!)

In the UK we don’t do tax returns, our place of employment takes care of all that for us automatically. If we’re due a refund it gets deposited in our bank accounts and as far as I’m aware we never owe anything. We never have to fill out a form or anything.

While I was in the HR department of my former job, here in the U.S., filling in my enrollment forms, the lady asked, “How many exemptions are you claiming?”

I looked at her like her like she’d just asked me the scientific formula for Donald Trump’s weave.

“…how many whats?” I asked.

“Exemptions.” she replied. “Do you have any?”

“Exemptions for what exactly?" I asked. "I used to be exempt from gym class if I had my period. And I am always exempt from Brussels Sprouts.”

“How many dependents are you claiming for?” she also wanted to know.

“….I have two cats and a tequila habit, is that what you mean?”

She looked at me partly with sympathy and partly with annoyance, but it made no difference. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. She might as well have spoken Swahili and done cartwheels around the room for all the sense she made.

I had a similar problem with medical insurance. I’ve never needed insurance because I grew up with the National Health Service, which is free. You get sick, you go to the doctor, it's that simple. You don't pay for anything except the prescription which is heavily subsidized.

The first time I saw a doctor in the United States, the receptionist at the doctor’s office pounced on me as soon as I entered and asked about my “copay”. I gave her that, “What you talkin’ about Willis?” look.

“My what now?”

“How much is your copay?”

I was stumped.

“Is that anything like a toupé?” I said cautiously. “Because this hair is all mine, baby!”

I was really clueless. I was used to receiving free doctor’s appointments. I was used to my prescriptions, regardless of what drug I was prescribed, costing the same standard rate (at the time about £5.15) which you ponied up at the pharmacy and then you were good to go.

Now I have to deal with all the boss’s medical doings and my head could not hurt more if there was a porcupine bouncing around in it. I have no idea why something is reimbursed partially or why a certain claim comes back unpaid or what goes on an FSA and what goes to the regular plan and what questions to ask to clarify most of this and don’t even think of trying to explain how COBRA works.

It’s infuriating and I do not understand. I would much rather pout and mutter.