Taxes

Taxes are due
I know I know already.
I got my W2 way back at the end of January. Which I promptly filed away with a mental note to do my taxes as soon as possible. Those of you that know me know that mental notes are useless to me (as my brain promptly takes the yellow post it of information and wads it up and throws it away).
More observant or organized people may use a technical term for my filing system such as “pile”. But it works the same way. I put it into a pile with other mail that needs to have something done to it. (For instance mail back a portion of the mail with a check for useful things such as my cell phone bill).

It should be mentioned at this point that a short while back I noticed a squeaky sound occasionally to my brakes. At the end of the week it turned into a full grown roar. Several shops I called were busy and asked to drive on it a little longer and to bring it in Monday so that the brake rotors could be totally ruined and they could charge me a lot more money to repair the brakes. No problem.

Back to the taxes
I noticed a while back (yesterday) that it may be a good time to do my taxes seeing as how the deadline is the first of the week. Now most of you with real jobs reading this might be shocked because you have long since filed your taxes and received your return from the IRS. This is not as big a priority to me because I am in law school and my return is; well… let’s just call it minimal. I did my own taxes by hand this year because buying tax software (or lord forbid taking my taxes to H&R block) would have eaten up the measly portion that I am to receive back from the government.

Long gone are the days of deductions, tax credits, itemizations, employment expenses, etc. I filed the EZ form because it will be EZ for the IRS to see that they have a fair chunk of my money. My only job (and W2) was the law school library and I own practically nothing. Taxes done.

After work (Where I filled out my taxes. – Hey, what am I going to do there but fill out tax forms and study?) I went to the post office to mail my taxes. (Brakes screeching like a really bad American Idol contestant). Rain is pouring down. I make it inside after shielding my precious taxes under my shirt because “The Man don’t like no soggy forms”
I put my quarters in the machine to get stamps. No dice. No stamps. Oh, they have stamps in the machine. The machine just won’t let me have any of the stamps. After committing what may have been a federal offense on the post office machine, it finally spit my quarters back out.
So I drive across town to another post office. (Brakes screeching all the way) This post office got hit by a tornado a while back and there is still plywood and plastic sheeting up everywhere. (Walking into the post office makes you feel like you are walking back stage of a local theatrical production where Buddy, the local handyman, has pieced together all the props with duct tape, bubble gum and spit.) I make it onto the post office while keeping “The Man’s” paperwork warm and dry under my shirt.
I walk into the post office and what do I see? Well looky there. It is the new stamp machine with a brand new out of order sign on it. How nice.

Since this is ONLY the second post office that I have been to I asked a nice looking little old lady if she knew where another post office might be. I was on a post office tour. I figured that I might as well see all of them.
Little did I know that the little old lady was simply waiting for another tornado to hit the post office so that she could be interviewed by the local news crews and say things like “Wooeee, it was loud! Sounded like a freight train! We barely got all the dogs and hogs out from under the trailer before she got blowed away! We sure are lucky. The good lord was just watching out for us.”
She wasn’t any help.

I was able to fool some technological marvel of science on the other side of the post office into selling me some stamps so that The Man can look at his clean dry paper and see how much money he took from me this year. Finally I had stamps. I put plenty of extra postage on it so that “The Man” would be proud of me. (And I had no idea how much postage to actually put on the oversized envelopes.)
As the envelopes slide into the slot I notice that the The Man’s paperwork may be a little soggy. I know this because just as the envelopes slid into the slot I saw that some of the ink that used to be the zip code was sliding down the envelope. Thankfully, (due to my incredibly quick thought and amazing hand speed) I was able to reach for the envelopes and push then into the slot just as I mouthed a profanity.

Not to worry. The IRS is the government. The post office is the government. You could tape 37 cents in coins to the outside of a old coffee tin labeled “In care of IRS” and they would get it. The Man has people everywhere. And they take care of The Mans business.

I can’t wait to get back my return. I think I am going to use it to buy some bubblegum, or ask somebody if they want to go in halfsies on a candy bar, or maybe just save it up for stamps for next year.