Mistakes

In Sara Suleri's novel Meatless Days, there is a character who cannot boil an egg: she pus it in the pot and as it descends inadvertently, reflexively, twists her hand so the egg cracks against the side of the pot and boils replete with "frills and gills."  Every time.

I am the same way with dependent care claims.  They combine two issues over which I am tremendously, irrationally anxious (money, children).  Never in the 4 years that I have been doing them have I been able to submit a receipt without screwing it up somehow.  I put the wrong dates, my pop-up blocker is on and I can't retrieve the form, I put the wrong SSN, I get the dollar amount wrong by a dollar, I put the right dates but in the Canadian not American order (which makes them the wrong dates, again) . . .

Now I know that I always get it wrong, which stresses me out and in being stressed out I get it wrong again.