W-h-o-o-s-h...

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Douglas Adams

I particularly like this quote from the late Douglas Adams who gave us witty and zany science fiction novels about people hitchhiking around the galaxy. One of the most fun times we had at the movies was when we saw the movie made from his novel Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. We were the only people in the auditorium and we had a wonderful time laughing and talking out loud and otherwise behaving badly.

I have constant deadlines, but I am almost never late with meeting mine, so I seldom get to hear the whooshing sound of a deadline flying by.  

But then we turn to “tax time.” I don’t love money in the Biblical sense that doing so would cause me to do something evil to get it, but I do work hard for the money I earn and I do like having it.

I also like living in this country, and unlike Adams with his deadlines, I don’t particularly like the “whooshing” sound the money makes as it flies out of here on its way to the IRS and the State tax collector. I acknowledge that paying taxes is something we need to do to help keep the state and the country running, and so on Monday morning I signed here... and here... and here... and… and Richard handed me the envelopes, and I presented myself at the counter at the local post office with our tax returns and off they went.

I have no idea what sort of wasteful spending goes on in the halls of the state government and out in Washington, DC, and I suspect I am better off not knowing.

But I do appreciate very much the state employees who climb into the huge yellow trucks with the plows anchored on the front and who keep our road cleared so we can get out in the winter, and the crews who come by and pick up the dead animals on the highway in front of our house so we don't have to smell them rotting. I appreciate very much the highway patrol officers who put their lives on the line to help keep our roads safe. I appreciate very much the government-funded system that was in place when our son got sick and which took care of his medical bills.

Tax time is not an easy time for us. Because we are both self-employed and work out of our home, the returns are rather complicated. Rendering unto Caesar isn’t always fun, and I am not going to go so far as to say I am “happy to do it,” but I am thankful I am paying it to our government. It could be worse.