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heap 2003
four:eleven
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Tax Evasions and Evading
the H-Weight
J: This
week it was my turn to get sick. Nothing as severe as Gina's fever last
week --
I just came down with a nasty cold --
but true to form, my sickness lasted longer than Gina's. I stayed home
from work on Thursday and most of Friday, sleeping, reading, and blowing
my nose.
On Friday night (I think it was Friday; it's all a blur) Bill Mayhew
came by. He wanted to show me a raccoon he had trapped in his yard. He
said the raccoon's name was Foamy, ha ha. Bill had Foamy in a little
cage-trap in his car. I went out and took a look. Foamy wasn't really
that foamy, he looked healthy and very fat, probably from all the cat
food he was stealing at the Mayhews' house. Gina and Booda didn't see
Foamy, they were out walking at the time. Bill and I took Foamy out to a
nice spot down near Beaver Dam woods and let him go.
By Saturday I started feeling a little better. I walked Booda in the
morning and began a long wrestling bout with income taxes, at which
point I had a mild relapse. I postponed the rest of the match and
returned to bed.
On Sunday Leo and Lucy came
over and we went walking with Booda down to Beaver Dam and back, (no sign of Foamy) with a few stops to talk with
and feed onion grass to the cows, who seemed very curious about Booda.
Lucy didn't get close to the cows because she had some bad experiences
when she was younger with some mean cows. After the walk Gina came back
from some clay people's meeting and she and Luisa left to go ballroom
dancing at Renee and Alex's place. Leo and Lucy took me to dinner at the
nearby Thai place.
On Monday after work the aforementioned Tax Team Wrestle Mania Event
came to a climax, as I first fought with several incredibly vicious,
vague tax worksheets and then switched to our clunky computer, which
decided to drop clusters from its hard drive right as I attempted to
apply a choke hold to a form 8880 worksheet. All of this occurred during
a long grueling match with some tax preparation software I had assumed was on my team when the
fight started. By the end of the evening I finally tagged my software
and it continued its odd bumbling, bouncing-off-the-ropes attacks,
typically attempting to knock out the 1040A by entering data in too many
places. Whatever. I was exhausted by then and refused to tag in when the
software flailed for assistance.
On Tuesday I played
hooky from work during the morning, and went with Gina to BWI airport to
see my youngest brother, Frank. The Air Force is shipping him from
Florida out to Parts Unknown for who-knows-how-long to fly helicopters,
and happened to send him through a nearby airport with a few hours of
layover. Naturally most of my family met him there, and we took over a
section of a restaurant for coffee, food, and beer to wish him bon
voyage and safe return.
Frank spent the first part of our reunion worrying over his luggage and
making sure we didn't slip the H-weight in it. The H-weight is one of
those long standing family traditions in our family. Originally it was a
large metal brick made of some heavy alloy, about 20 pounds worth, with
an imprint of an H in it. I have no idea what the H stands for, maybe
"Heavy." When we were quite young we started secretly putting it in
luggage belonging to any sibling who was leaving for any trip that
required luggage. It instantly puts the lug in luggage. Naturally whomever found
the H-weight kept it for the entire trip, because then he had the sacred
duty to transfer it to another sibling's luggage at some other
inappropriate time (which might be the very next trip to, say, Japan).
Sadly, the original H-weight was lost in a mid-flight carry-on mishap.
Luckily it didn't land on someone's head. I don't think we need to say
any more about that, especially anything about the poor confused
stewardess stumbling up and down the aisle holding a metal brick in both
hands, while she tried to locate the owner.
But now we have a new H-weight, which has begun a whole new series of
adventures! And Bill didn't bring it to the airport.
He blamed new security issues, but I say damn Security, the H-weight is
more important than that. I think Bill has a backup plan -- mail it to
Frank in a care package. Care for the H-weight well,
Frank, and
bring it home safely. Duty, Honor, H-weight!
After work on Tuesday our tax software told us that it had successfully
e-filed all State and Federal forms, and that I had to mail a check to
my state comptroller before midnight. So I went for a little walk with
Booda, ate some dinner, fiddled around with some other meaningless
stuff, then wrote out a check and whisked it down to the post office,
which had closed about an hour before I got there. So I drove to another
post office about 10 miles away. It was closed too. So I joined a
five-car convoy of My People (the people who procrastinate with tax
forms every year) and followed them to another post office about 15
miles further on. We finally arrived at an open post office, where
smiling postal workers received envelopes from many elated tax nomads,
weary from their journeys but happy to find so many others just like
them.
When I arrived home that evening, Dorian had left a phone message
saying he was on his way to the woods for a camp fire with some friends.
I picked up my dij and a backpack with beer and an apple, and trekked
about a mile through the woods until I found Dorian, Amethyst, Gary,
Rich, and Ellen (and two doggies, Athena and Lazarus), with food, drink,
drums, a full Moon, and a cozy little fire. Later, around 10:30, Gina
and Luisa joined us, with Booda. We had a grand time, telling stories,
joking and playing, until about 2:00 in the morning. A little fire and
friends under the trees
in moonlight
makes for a wonderful break from computer crashes and taxes.
Tonight Gina went to bed early; I fear she has my cold. I'm hoping her
usual constitution takes care of it overnight. We'll see.
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