What was not on my bingo card for January? Another stoppage of child support. When one payment was missed, I gritted my teeth and texted my ex: “Hey, did you change jobs again?”

What followed was a conundrum. The money was coming out of his paycheck, but it wasn’t getting to me.

So like a normal person, I Googled it. There are various reasons, including the payment processor for the state changing. One thing I picked up from my search: Do not try to phone child support. It has a contact form on its website and it works great. I had an email response in an hour.

Unfortunately, there was no record of his payments. So they tried to contact his employer and got voicemail. After a few more days, I sent the ex the child support person’s name and asked him to have his payroll contact them, because this is damaging to both of us.

At this point, he is dangerously close to the point where penalties will be enforced. And if a few of my youngest son’s activities had not canceled due to weather, my financial picture would be bleak. At any other time of year, I would have had to involuntarily cut off his activities. So “Yay Winter!”

It isn’t just activities either. I was forced to buy the youngest some clothes to replace some that inexplicably vanished.

Meanwhile, we are working on another conundrum. My youngest won’t use an alarm to wake up. So every weekday morning, it’s a struggle to wake him. The aforementioned activities? They keep him

Busy and, therefore, more tired. If he had his choice, he’d play games on his devices all day and night and go to sleep around 1 a.m.

A payment finally processed as I was writing this column. One payment. Not what he is behind. The system is set up to make it fair for the person paying, not the children. I sent my ex another message: “I guess the rest goes into your arrears. Have fun paying into retirement.”

No kidding, this really happens. Oh well, life is not fair, is it?