Dateline: Mt. Bonnell International Branch Office. Bed, laptop on pillow. Sammie against my thigh (dog) and Suzi on my feet. (Also dog.)
Goal: To awaken the people of the United States of America to the ever present Society Insanity pounding us into the turf and stripping our lives of all meaning.
Income Tax Hell: This morning (noon) I commit to doing the taxes. The potential of prison pushes my screaming emotions and rationalizations aside. Also, I don’t feel very well anyway, so no creativity time will go to waste. I begin.
Dilemma One: I can’t get pass my resentment. Why do I have to keep doing this I want to know? I’ve sent forms in for enough years with the same names, addresses, numbers, and similar income–Can’t some federal agent put together a board with all the numbers I’ve sent in all these many years and throw a dart?.
I’m good with that. I’d even add a few percent. I’d send a cookie bouquet.
Dilemma Two: I must clear a space to assemble the mess and watch the papers procreate. Not an easy task since my desk is the bed and I’m not alone. (See dateline for clarification.) This means, sort through the junk and important mail I am going to respond to at some point. For starters. Next I must clear off my cute Ikea desk that only I know exists under the pile in the corner. Drag the desk to the side of the bed. Still no place for the printer, I’m forced to the attic for a couple of folding chairs. Now we’re to the end of hour one.
I want to quit, but I persist because that’s just the kind of good citizen I am.
Break time. I have a few colorful diseases that make the moving and stacking process, if not hell, at least purgatory. Rest is an absolute requirement. I turn the air conditioner on 67 degrees and switch the overhead fan to jet engine mode. Ah. . . I finish an episode of “Longmire” leftover from last night. Instead of skipping the commercials, I mute them. I promised myself I was back on income tax Hell after one show and I wanted the maximum down time.
Dilemma Three: Reality sucks. A quick perusal of accounts on line, a mere forerunner to the horror to come, reveals that I couldn’t basically trace the 1040 from last year as I had planned. There was an inheritance received years ago that I’d chosen to repress until the day my government forced me to take it out of holding and pay the man.
That day is today.
I need help. I have no idea how to deal with this. I’d rather be found in bed dead of starvation than deal with one more customer service rep in my lifetime.
I haven’t perfected the art of understanding English as a second language. Encounters with customer service always end in unattractive behavior and ultimately slows down the problem-solving process.
I begin the dreaded will-search. 
Finding the will will be a particularly grueling task as I put it in a special place where I could find it years later when I needed the information. End of hour three and I haven’t typed in my address and social. Break time.
Dilemma Three: How and where do I begin? The dogs were no help with this question. Then, this is the age of the internet. The smart start is to download the IRS forms and the thousand pages instructions so I can deal with this new crinkle, the inheritance. I drag in a printer and a ream of paper. I stuff the paper tray, hit the printer power and lie back for a rest. This, thank heavens, will take a while. Ah. . .
Two long minutes retrieving data. Then boom! Sheets of paper shot out of the printer, caught the turbo breeze, and jetted through the room. Paper tornado. Dogs go nuts. Dodging incoming missiles I try to power off the computer, but the outlet strip was under the bed and the power button on the printer had been dislodged in an earlier immature struggle. “Pull out the paper tray!” you say. Good idea but I’d super-glued that puppy on an afternoon when a loose connection kept signalling out of paper and cutting off the printer.
The fan remote is my next attempt at saving myself and who knows how many trees.
Of course I couldn’t find it. It had been at least an hour since I’d used it. In that time it could be in the dog run, somewhere under the comforter, or more likely right in front of my face. Papers are billowing and piling up. I give up. I’m just staying until someone arrives to dig me out.
I wish I could find the television remote so I could at least listen to another “Longmire” while I waited for rescue. Instead the dang television has switched to default which is ESPN where they are talking excitedly about something . . . probably next year’s Superbowl.
Once you’re emotions are running the show. . . you can’t expect to accomplish much.
