Yesterday I got a letter from the IRS. Usually one isn't too happy to get a letter from the IRS, but this one was a little different:

We do not have a record of receiving your 2005 Form 1040ES third quarter payment. If you mailed your Form 1040ES payment to an IRS post office box in San Francisco between September 1 and September 11, 2005, it may have been lost or destroyed during transport.

On Sunday, September 11, 2005 an accident occurred on the San Mateo Bridge near San Francisco, California involving a courier transporting payments to an IRS Payment Processing Site. A truck carrying tax payments overturned, causing approximately 30,000 Form 1040ES quarterly tax payments to be ejected into the San Francisco Bay.

If you sent a payment during that time and the check has not cleared your bank, please send us a replacement check...

It's nice to know that someone at the IRS has a sense of humour.