Taxes 4 Less!

It's tax season and you know what that means!

Well, maybe it means something else for you. For me? It means I'm hating life for the next few months.

And I don't DO taxes or anything. But my husband does. Which means I don't see him from mid-January until April 15th. Every now and then he comes home, grunts something at me, eats something, and goes to bed.

It's lovely, really.

Anyway, this morning I planned on sleeping in because, well it's the weekend for one, and also? My job just sucks so bad that it's not even that I'm resting on the weekend, I'm just trying to avoid shrieky people and audits and "just one more thing".

Jason has to work, however, and this morning his alarm went off slightly before the buttcrack of dawn and of course he let it go off about 80 times before he actually got up and then he says,

"Hey! I have a great idea!"

In case you are someone who is unfamiliar with my marriage, whenever he says this? It is never, ever, EVER, EVER, EVER a good idea. Ever. In fact? It's almost always a horribly bad idea.

Today's idea? Did not disappoint.

"How about you bring the kids to my office and have them hold up signs by the highway!"

"Signs!?" I asked. "What kind of signs?"

"You know! Signs that say We do Taxes! Or, Taxes for less! OH! Taxes 4 Less! With the number instead of the letters!"

"No," I said, sullenly, upset that my sleep was disturbed for this nonsense.

"What if I promise you sexual favors?" he asked.

"Number one, I'm not a guy so that doesn't work," I said. "Number two, no."

That went on for about twelve years and somehow, he wore me down. He always does, somehow.



He left and went to work and I went to tell the children about the plan for the day. I found the Girl Child watching Spongebob.

"Girl Child," I said. "You need to get dressed so we can go hold up signs by the highway."

"The hell with that!" she declared.



No really, she did. I laughed for like two hours about that.



We went to Party City which really isn't a fun place, despite it's name. As a side note: To the chick working at Party City? Could you be more of a complete bitch? I mean, seriously. Your entire job is to blow up balloons. You even have a helium tank. You don't have to blow them up with your own breath even. Please do not act like you are SO PUT OUT by me asking you to DO YOUR STUPID JOB.

Also? Come do my job for one day. Just one. Then you can be a bitch and act like blowing up balloons all freaking day is hard.

Gah.

On the way to Party City we had seen two men dressed as Uncle Sam, sitting at the bus stop. We laughed hysterically about that and I said, "Gas prices are so high Uncle Sam can't even afford to drive!" The kids laughed at that too, but they didn't get it.

Party City had those Uncle Sam hats, so I got the kids those too.

We went to the office, tied the balloons to the street sign, wrote TAXES 4 LESS! on posterboard and stood by the highway.

And absolutely nothing happened.


Well, I take that back. The following happened:

-Twelve people honked
-One guy flipped us a bird (he must work for H&R block)
-Someone threw an entire bag of garbage out of their car window. I'm seriously not kidding, like a huge Hefty Bag of garbage. It went everywhere, all over the road. The car behind it plowed into it at 60 mph and it just exploded. Diet Pepsi bottles flew like bullets.
-Boy Child danced numerous jigs, tipped his hat to the traffic, did the finger point thing like Uncle Sam in the pictures, and shrieked, "TAXES!" and occassionally, "CORN!" like that Bobby Lee stand-up comedy routine.


Did I mention it was about 42 degrees? Because it was.


Not one person stopped. Not even one person slowed down.


Total taxes done for the day? Zero.


I? Was considerably annoyed.

We got in the car to come home and Boy Child said, his eyes shining, "Man! That was SO much fun!"

"Fun?" I asked, skeptically. "Really?"

"Yeah!" he said. "I got to wear a hat and scream at traffic. It doesn't get any better than that!"




I like the way that kid thinks.