How crazy is it that I actually understand this?

Having an escrow mortgage account through Bank of America is awesome.

(Not only is it crazy that I understand it, it is crazy that I could have an opinion about it!)

I had a minor heart attack the other day when we got a bill from the County of San Bernardino that we were DELINQUENT (it's always in all caps, in bright red, isn't it...) on paying our "2010 SUPPLEMENTAL SECURED PROPERTY TAX BILL."

Now, as a person who pays a little above our house payment on time every month, and also submits our taxes online well before the deadline, I panicked. I had never heard of anything that was on the bill, and was surprised that it came from the County and not Bank of America. (It also didn't help that the name of the website was mytaxcollector.com... Can't they think of a name that doesn't call to mind some of the worst Biblical characters? "Tax Collector" is literally an epithet, and not exactly something that warms the heart when trying to deal with something nervewracking!)

On top of that, our car tags were both due AT THE SAME TIME last month. (You're welcome CA. Please spend our money on something important, like Arnold's affairs.) And we just got back from a trip where we enjoyed ourselves. And we are going on several more involving high gas prices and John taking time off of work. And I just paid for my 9th masters class. And I have another payment coming up in a few weeks.

Did I mention that this supplemental tax bill was $800?

Anyway, so back to the point. I am in no way trying to say that our financial situation is in dire straits, or that we have it worse off than anyone else. Everyone has their own priorities for money, and their own opinions for what is wealthy and struggling. I am more trying to explain the mild panic that I was feeling about so much money going in so many directions all at once.

My mom's solution was to call MyTaxCollector and then call Bank of America. Neither of these helped my anxiety at all. I hate calling customer service lines, and automatically let it build in my mind about how awful it would be, until I was cleaning off the table this morning. I had been ignoring them for a few days, and something made me call today.

It wasn't that bad. In fact, it was awesome!

The lady at MyTaxCollector wasn't too peachy on answering my questions, but that was probably because she deals with a lot of idiots during the day, and is used to taking money from people who don't want to give it up. I tried to assure her that I was not an idiot, just someone who randomly finds herself having to do grown up things like call about property taxes when she is still really just a kid on summer break. I did this by asking my questions in a calm and "Aren't I dumb and you have all the answers?" kind of way and she lightened up. She explained that the value of our house had changed at some point, and that these were extra taxes to be paid. She explained that usually your mortgage payment covers taxes, but not in this case because they were extra and separate from the mortgage. She advised that I call Bank of America to see if there was any money in our "fund" to cover these taxes.

That was one hurdle down, one to go. I really felt kind of dumb calling Bank of America. I mean really, I am going to call to ask them if I have any extra money to pay an $800 bill? I figured she would laugh at me. Actually, I figured the voice recording would laugh at me, since I would never actually be able to talk to anyone.

I got the nicest southern lady ever, named Linda. She called me "Mrs. Brah-son" and asked me "How are yew tuh-day-ee?" Much better than MyTaxCollector friend who never even gave her name. I was not able to find my account number since we do everything online, but I was (miraculously) able to find John's social security number on file which easily gave us access. She asked me what loan I was calling about, and I was totally prepared for her to laugh at me when I said "Actually, I am not sure which loan I am calling about. I have a SUPPLEMENTAL SECURED PROPERTY TAX BILL that is DELINQUENT and I don't know what that means." As I held my breath she said "Ok, honey, let me bring that up."

Literally 10 second later I hung up the phone. She explained that we had enough in our escrow account to cover the bill, and that once I faxed over the information, they would send a check out. When I asked her if it would be bad that our escrow account would now be empty she said "Oh, honey, part of your next monthly pay-ee-ment will be set aside to escrow until it gets bay-uck up. Some people don't lay-uk escrow accounts be-cows it sets as-i-yud your money. I lay-uk for you, though, be-cows you don't have to worry about these extra taxes."

It feels like Bank of America paid this bill for me, since they are just taking care of it. I am going to pretend like they gave me a gift even though it's just our money that's been set aside each month.

Also, I completed the survey for Linda and gave her 10 out of 10.

Hooray for that full-of-relief feeling when things are taken care of!