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Thursday, February 23, 2006

Sigh

There's nothing worse than doing your taxes - at least if you're a disorganized, form-illiterate, numbers-handicapped numbskull. Like me.

Oh wait.

There is something worse.

Sitting down to do your taxes, while an approaching head cold is threatening to drive a truck over your sinuses and PMS is playing racquetball with your hormones. That's worse.

Wait, there's more.

You load the tax software, and when it tells you to restart your computer, you click "OK", the computer powers down, and then, because your computer has decided that wreaking havoc with your life is more fun than helping with the taxes, it sticks out its tongue and says "Nyah, nyah, nayh, nyah, nyah, nyah." (Otherwise translated as "Non-system disk error") You think, "Oh, it's just messing with me" and so you power down and try again. And again. And all that happens is more taunting. And the T4's and T3's cluttering your computer desk start to dance a dance of glee to the tune of your computer's nasty taunt.

I wish I could say I handled it maturely, walked away, rose above my tribulations, and instead decided to catch up on the laundry. But that would be lying.

No, instead I disappeared into my room, closed the door, climbed under my blankie, and cried. It didn't solve my problem, but at least I got to indulge in a good old-fashioned pity party.

Yes, I did eventually figure out that I was getting a disk error because someone had left a floppy in the drive. Whew. I was beginning to have nightmares of the cost of computer repair, and that just made me cry harder. Any money I was HOPING to get back on taxes would quickly be drained.

But now, instead of going back to the taxes, I'm killing time blogging. Any tax-energy I'd managed to build up has been destroyed by my emotional meltdown. Sigh.

Why couldn't I have been born with the "good at doing taxes" gene?

8 comments:

Linda said...

If you were born with the GAT gene, you wouldn't be writing the way you do and that would be sad. Chin up my dear. PMS has a way of covering our world with a black shroud. It'll be lifted soon. God bless you.

Gina said...

We used TurboTax a few years ago, and it gave us a refund of over a million dollars! I went back over it with a fine-toothed comb, and could not find a mistake. So we called the company and all they had to say was, "Our software doesn't make mistakes!" Implying, of course, that we were idiots.

We have never used TurboTax again.

Anvilcloud said...

What the heck are you doing? Don't we have two more months? Sigh ... you probably sat at the front of the class too. :)

Heather Plett said...

No, AC, I did NOT sit at the front of the class (more like the middle - I wasn't much of a back-seater either). I wanted to make sure they were done before the end of February in case I needed to buy RRSP's :-)

mmichele said...

if you had the "good at taxes gene" well then you'd be good at EVERYTHINH and i'd just have to hate you. (pillow covers, writing, leading...taxes...need i say more?)

ccap said...

EVERYTHING, Michele? Come now. As her sister I can vouch that she's not good at EVERYTHING. :-)

Oy ve! Aren't those emotional meltdowns fun? I feel as though I've been given a bit of a reprieve though. Which is only fair seeing as I had them pretty much 24/7 during pregnancy.

Anonymous said...

Your one up on me.. I probably won't be sitting down to do mine until April 29th. :-).

karla said...

I like to file early too. Mostly because I want my tax return, but something about getting that out of the way for another year just feels good.