Beware the IDES OF APRIL!!!
...it got to the point where I couldn't put it off any further...

April 15th: A Day that will live in infamy: Julius Caesar was told to "beware the Ides of March". I guess the "15th" is the "ides", whatever that means. So it would only make sense that every month has an "ides". This is how my brain works. Welcome to my world. And, many people are all too aware of the "Ides of April" (April 15th)...yep, yew better git yer taxes done by then...although, this year, the "ides" is on a Sunday, so I 'spose you've got 'till Monday the 16th (the "day after the Ides") to pay, pay, and pay some more to your beloved federal and state governments. My own income picture has changed somewhat over the years; it's become a little more complicated. I used to do the "EZ" form, but that doesn't work for me anymore. And, I can't figure it all out. To me, a standard tax form looks about as complicated as any given page in an algebra textbook, so I just took all my stuff to "H & R Blockhead"...and, basically, I spent close to $200 to file a tax report, the conclusion of which is that I don't owe the government anything.

I'm in a new area; I don't know my way around here; otherwise, I'd have gone to the A.A.R.P. tax services, where senior citizens with tax experiences will do yer taxes for free. (It is a great program!) But I didn't know where the A.A.R.P. place was. And at this late date, I was too lazy to try and dig out the phone book, get an address, and study the map to find out how to get there. I just wanted to get the damn thing done. That's one of my bad traits; I get on a rampage, and basically I'm too impulsive for my own good. Well, that's an "Aries" for ya. We're kinda bullheaded when we're trying to achieve a goal. Ah, but since I didn't know where the A.A.R.P. place around here WAS, I went to "H & R Blockhead". And spent $200 to find out I didn't owe anything. Gosh, if I'm spending money like that, for an expense that tells me I'm basically "off scot-free", then I figure I'd be qualified to be a mid-level pencil-pushing bureaucrat on some high-falootin' Senator's pork-barrel budget, huh? I can just see myself now, approving the expense of taxpayer dollars for highways that go nowhere, and shoveling money out the door to finance studies of assaultive insect behavior on discarded banana peels. A few thousand should do it, here ya go. Yep, I'd be REAL GOOD with money!

The "H & R Blockhead" branch I went to was unique...or maybe not...I don't get around a lot anymore, so I don't know; anyway, the tax place was inside a WAL-MART. Even in this small Oregon Town, the Wal-Mart is almost as big as your average major airport, airplane hangars included. And, as I was answering the tax lady's questions, I was constantly being distracted by the merciless beep-beep-beep of the Wal-Mart cash registers...there were something like 10 or 12 or 200 cash registers all being operated at the same time, so the beeps came in no particular order, sometimes solitary beeps, then perhaps a few "beep clusters". I wonder if Wal-Mart store managers actually compute Wal-Mart's average daily intake in "beeps per minute"...again, that's how my brain works; sorry 'bout that. Something else I thot about as the tax lady asked me questions and punched buttons on her computer (no, her computer didn't beep)...I remember seeing sunshine and blue skies before I went to get my taxes done; it might have been a perfect day for going to an ocean beach, but there I was, a prisoner of the tax-lady's cubicle, all the while being mercilessly subjected to cash-register-beep-torture. You've probably heard Bob Dylan's "Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again"; my version of that would be "Stuck Inside a Wal-Mart with the tax-file Blues Again".
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Ah, the "Ides of April". A day that will live in infamy. Quite a few disasters happened on that
day. Prezzident Lincoln was shot on April 14th and died on April 15th. The Titanic rammed an iceberg the nite of the 14th, and sunk on the 15th. And, besides being tax-deadline-day, it's also my birthday. Strangely appropriate somehow, huh? Finally, an old joke which fits here:

Student #1:" Do you know what today's English class subject will be?"
Student #2: "I think She's gonna talk about syntax."
Student #1: "You mean there's a tax on that, too?" (Insert rimshot)