So, tomorrow morning is my appointment with my tax guy. Yesterday I was talking about how I am a total techno geek. This does not extend to utilizing very conveniently created accounting and tax software. In that respect, I am a throwback to another generation. Otherwise known as the Shoebox Generation.

Now, I am kind of organized. I do have a series of file folders where I file various receipts throughout the year. Okay, so maybe quarterly-ish I take the Leaning Tower of Receipts and force myself to file them. With most of those going in the “Business” folder. A catch all folder meaning “anything that doesn’t fit in the other folders.” So, in other words, like 90% of all paper generated in my house that’s not schoolwork. I dutifully, if not so much regularly, sort through and file all those little scraps, and feel quite assured that come the end of the year (or, the very last second a few months into the new year when I can’t put it off a day longer) I will easily sort through the stuffed folders and put together some kind of coherent report for the tax guy to use in figuring out my taxes.

Yes, I could use Excel or something similar to keep track during the year, so all I have to do is push PRINT and voila, instant report. But no, I won’t. I just don’t want to. That would mean facing this annoying task monthly. Or even quarterly. No, no. I want to shove everything in my neatly labeled folders and not think about them until that one day I pull the proverbial “shoe box of receipts” out and sort through it once and for all, before packing it all away in a labeled accordion file for that tax year…and starting all over again with freshly emptied labeled folders.

That day is today.

And only because Appt. w/ Tax Guy Day is tomorrow. Had I known it would also be One Week Before Deadline Day, I might have planned better, but who knew? So I taped the Olympics last night…well, five hours of them anyway, and plan on watching/listening to them as I sort, sift, and tally. There may be munchies involved as well, because, you know, sustenance is key when confronting such a monumental task.

All this is to say that if I babble incoherently in my blog tomorrow, I’m either a) cross-eyed from trying to make out totals on receipts where the ink has magically disappeared or b) recovering from the crying jag induced by my accountant when he tells me he needs a more detailed report. The latter is generally cured by ingesting copious amounts of cookie dough ice cream and swearing I’ll keep better track during the course of the next tax year.

Even though I know I’m lying.

Any excuse for ice cream, right? (Rule #1: It’s Always About the Ice Cream)

Now, one last comment today. Are the programming gods trying to make me crazy? (Okay, the rest of the short drive to crazy?) I am a confessed reality show addict. I do not want a 12 Step Program to cure me. What I do want is for there not to be three shows (four if you count the Olympics, which has almost been more reality show than some of the regular ones these days, with all the bickering and oops’s) all scheduled on the same night, at the same time! Dancing w/ the Stars final night of competition to see if Drew outscores Stacy on his last try. Survivor, to see if they’re smart enough to send Shane to Exile Island so we can watch him really freak his freak out. And the first results show on American Idol. (I know, I know, but they’re interesting this year. No, really.) I can only TiFaux, tape, and watch so many things, programmers. It’s cruel, I tell you. Especially when other nights are a programming wasteland. Don’t make me have to choose.

(I see a potential for even more medicinal ice cream in my immediate future.)

Tags: Writing //