Yesterday I was going through the mail - with caution - and there was a letter from the Internal Revenue Service. When I turned it to open it I noticed that the envelope had ripped some on the flap. When I opened it, my nose felt kind of dry, tingly and my mouth tasted funny, - but there was no powder of any kind. I was trying to be calm, so I took out the papers and everything looked okay, but the form was the same one we had received back in early September. I immediately began to wonder if this letter had really come from the IRS, or if it had been tampered with? What if this was some other way of transmitting anthrax that didn't need a powder? Of course, it didn't help that 2 postal workers have it and 2 others are believed to have died from it - where did they get it? They didn't open any letter?
The other thing that makes me suspicious is that we had received this same notice earlier telling us that while we had an overpayment of $700, because we'd been late paying our taxes we had penalties and interest in excess of that and we still owed them $245. This was kind of odd, because we had received our tax rebate and they had deducted the $245 from the $600 amount. When we received our rebate check of $300+ there was no explanation, just a check, but I deducted the amount the said we owed from the $600 and it was the right amount. We had also received a statement from them this past weekend explaining how they arrived at our rebate amount and apologizing for the delay because of the terrorist attacks.
The letter yesterday looked like a photocopy of the early September letter only it said we owed it by October 15th. I still had the letter from this weekend and I got it out. The envelopes aren't the same, although they do have the same bulk rate permit number. Neither envelope has a postmark on them. The bar codes on the bottom of the envelopes are not the same. I tried to call the 1-800-number they give for customer service "but due to the unusually high volume of calls" I was switched to an automated answering machine and after punching in all my numbers and social security number, they told me the automated machine couldn't help me and disconnected. I didn't try back.
I showed my husband and he looked at it and smelled, and just said it smelled like cheap newsprint (they'd stuffed in an IRS form). I washed my hands, washed my face and took a bath and changed clothes. I put both envelopes in a plastic bag and am going to take it to work with me today. I'm close friends with our Chief of Police, so I'm going to catch him in private and ask him about it. I'm not sure what I'll do if he doesn't want to test it? Can I call the State Health Department? How far do I take this?
I've tried to talk myself out of it all night, but then I'd say - what if you don't need a powder to transport spores, what if this is the new way to get it out to the public in letters from the IRS, what if there are others who have died from anthrax that people didn't even know about?
Well, you all must think I'm crazy now, but I can't stop thinking about it. My muscles are so tense and my stomach is churning. My blood pressure last night when I was at the worst of my fear was 158/87! That's the highest it's ever been - it's usually 128/76 or so.
If any of you could offer any advice or anything to calm me down it would be appreciated. Thanks.
