Taxing Times

Talk about the times that try mens souls. I don’t know about mens souls, but my soul is a little worse for wear this week. I have been doing my taxes. But I feel like my taxes have been doing a number on me.

Maybe the operative word here is "number." They aren’t my thing. They never have been. Math and I have a longstanding controversial relationship. We hate each other. I try to be cordial, because we do have to get along sometimes. When I want to pay bills and balance the checkbook, for example.

Math, on the other hand, doesn’t even try to meet me halfway. It is always changing. It never says what I need it to say. It always disappears just when I need it most. When I want those numbers to expand, they decrease. When I need more, they become less. And math delights in playing hide and seek, especially when I need to balance the checkbook. A few numbers always run off and hide.

I’m a writer. I am not a number person. I have an innate distrust of people that can make numbers sit down and behave; to do what they are supposed to when they are supposed to. It just isn’t natural or normal. In fact, it scares me a little.

I have been dreading doing our taxes this year in particular. We always itemize, but we had what Turbo Tax likes to call some "life changes" this year. I have been putting it off, but I finally sat down this week to get it done.

It was a mistake. I am organized in the extreme about our taxes, because we do itemize. I save everything, and everything has a nice little folder, with labels and envelopes and sub-labels. So this should have been really simple. You just plug in the numbers, hit the buttons, and you are done. Yeah, right.

I got my stuff together, and sat down at 9:30 a.m. By 1:30 p.m., I was ready to either throw the computer or myself off the roof. We were having a distinct lack of communication. We moved this year, and in the process of moving I discovered things I thought I had right where I needed them had apparently moved somewhere else.

Every number I put in led to a new question, which led to a different piece of paper, which led to another question, which led to another piece of paper. That led to a search for more paper. Eventually, I ran out of papers I had, and had to search for papers I needed. That’s when things really got fun.

I couldn’t find what I needed, even though it should have been where it wasn’t. I detest not being able to find things. Gary had some information in his computer at work, but I couldn’t get in touch with him because he was at work. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go back. Offices that I could call to get additional information were closed because it was President’s Day.

By the time Gary called to see how my day was going around 2 p.m. things were bad enough that Gary probably regretted making the phone call. He advised that I back away from the computer. Slowly. Just walk away. Put it down. Carefully. Breathe in, Breathe out. He apologized, profusely, for ever mentioning that we needed to get around to doing our taxes. He apologized that anything as evil as taxes had ever been invented. He suggested I go take a nap. He suggested I go find chocolate. Anything, just as long as I stop what I was doing.

He promised I would never, ever have to look at the taxes again. He promised he would do the rest of them. He promised we would pack it all up and take it to a professional. He promised we would go out to eat that night.

It was not a good day. After I had calmed down a little, which took about four days, we tried it again. We found the paperwork we needed, and we slew the beast.

The taxes are finally done. Since one of the things Gary promised was that next year he would do it all, I’m not stressing about it. I am practicing, though. I may have to talk him down from the roof next year.