A Blast to the Past

Centrelink is like an elephant: It never forgets. Also, similar to an elephant, Centrelink often operates on peanuts (a euphemism for minimal funding and resources, although the literal meaning works too) and tramples all over you if you fail to appease the beast. And so, like any reasonable person, one would tend to stay away from Centrelink as much as possible, much like how you would react to an elephant.

This comic more or less wraps up the thematic series of comics on my current conundrum with Centrelink, getting my past income issues ironed out and straightening all those nasty tax records that I haphazardly sent through. Will I finally be free from the shackles of Centrelink after this? Only time will tell.

Missing Callback

Still continuing the Centrelink mini-saga, based on the always-confusing information that gets spat out by everyone's favourite government agency. Honestly, I'm not going to sit around eating Cheetos and watching "The Bold and the Beautiful" for the next 5 weeks while the fate of my savings lies idly in the hands of a bunch of butter-fingered toddlers (i.e. Centrelink). I'm going to march right up to them, look 'em straight in the eyes and say "Excuse me, why are you so incompetent?" before being pointed to the seating area. So tune in around the same time next week to see if anything useful came out of that dreaded interaction.

Tax Evasion

Look, it's one of those rare comics where I actually show some relevance to my current state of finances affairs. Yes, I'm still waiting for Centrelink to get back to me about my updates to my taxable income from 2016 - 2017, so I'm not looking forward to that AT ALL. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm in this weird purgatory zone, where even the slightest caveat could be the difference between being an idiot who can't file their tax return and a legitimate tax fraud.
So if you don't hear from me again after, like, April, it's because I'm either in jail, on the streets (repaying Centrelink debt is more or less like paying back a loan shark) or in a body bag. See you at the morgue!

Reject and Receive

Largely based on those situations where my parents always refuse gifts of money from anyone and everyone, simply because it shows "weakness" in one's social status. Soon, it turns into a competition of stubbornness in an attempt to wear down each other until the other party resigns and takes the money-related gift. And then I'm usually there thinking: "Why don't you just take the free money, so people stop staring at us?". Ah, well. I guess some questions are best left unanswered...

The Phantom Fee

That's $5 in membership fees I'll never get back from that one candle shop where I bought some crummy scented candle during that one time, and then the shop eventually ended up closing down anyway. Even worse are the recurring subscription-based memberships, and then they try to get you involved in some archaic points system, like this is some kind of primary school for idiots. Like, I just want to buy this one thing and get back to my mundane life! Is that too much to ask for?

EDIT: If you're wondering why the URL has a random "_4" after the comic name, it's because Blogger is being stupid and refusing to let me save and edit my posts as writing this. After a couple of re-drafts, it seemed to work again, although I'm not sure if it's possible to change the URL at this point...