O.C. Tax Procrastinators Play the Waiting Game : Deadline: Last-minute filers scurry to post offices, where they encounter lines--long ones.

Karen Olson has the practice down pat.

“I take my time and enjoy life throughout the year,” the 26-year-old Newport Beach woman said. “And then on this one day every year, I go crazy!”

This day, of course, was Wednesday. Tax Day. Doomsday. V-Day--if you were lucky.

“Me, I’m not lucky,” Olson lamented while filling out her state income tax form on a bench at a Santa Ana post office. “I have to pay $231” in taxes.

For Olson, and for countless other procrastinators in Orange County, going to the post office--or even doing their income taxes there--on the day was nothing new.

Most waited until the last minute before dashing to their calculators or their tax preparers to get the inevitable done. Afterward, they rushed to the post office--the only place where they could catch their breath for the first time during the day because then, they had to wait in line. A long line.

Surprisingly, the last-minute filers who scurried to post offices Wednesday didn’t mind the long wait in the parking lot or the growing lines in the lobbies.

“It’s not really that bad. I’m pleasantly surprised how fast the line is moving,” said Chuck Fay, 42, of Newport Beach as he leaned back against a wall eating a burrito. Fay was behind 11 others waiting to send their tax returns by registered mail, but “that will give me time to finish my lunch,” he said.

More than a million federal income tax envelopes from Orange County were expected to be mailed by the deadline at midnight Wednesday, according to Gindy Barnard, spokeswoman for the IRS district office in Laguna Niguel.

To handle the onslaught, 10 post offices in the county extended their lobby hours past regular business hours. Also, as was done last year, many branches also set up collection boxes on the street to make it easier for people to drive through and drop off their envelopes after work. Postal workers manned those drop-off boxes until midnight.

There were continuous throngs of people and cars coming and going Wednesday, according to branch managers, but very few customers who were disgruntled about the traffic or the wait.

“It’s crazy here,” said Stacy DiRocco, manager of communications at the Santa Ana General Mail Facility, one of the busiest postal service branches in the county. “But people are in fairly good spirits considering they’re mailing their tax returns.”

Indeed, some deliberately put off sending in their tax returns until the deadline.

“I had it done several weeks back,” said one woman who owes the IRS $40,000 and who didn’t want to give her name. “I just was in no hurry to send it off. I didn’t want to send it off.”

Teresa Hall, 36, of Perris in Riverside County sat in her parked car for several minutes before reluctantly getting out her wallet. She then grudgingly wrote out a check--how much, she wouldn’t say--to the IRS.

“I didn’t want to part with my money,” she said with a groan. “I always wait till the last minute every year around 11 (p.m.). I’m doing better than usual” this year.

“I planned to come in on the last day--there was never any doubt,” said Dan Stahl, 35, of Santa Ana. “Taxes have been on the back burner until it was absolutely necessary to do it.”

After Wednesday’s nerve-racking rush to get her returns in on time, Edletha Mack, 38, of Costa Mesa decided that that was it.

“I’m never, ever going to wait in line again,” she vowed. “From now on, I’m going to mail (my taxes) in early because I’m not going to owe them again. This has been going on too long.”