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Woke up this morning in a Terrible Mood.
I think because I wanted someone to complain to last night.
But since there wasn’t anyone to complain to, the discontent festered—kinda the same way a tickle in the back of your throat metamorphoses overnight into a full-blown grippe if you don’t pop zinc losenges and Vitamin C.
###
TaxBwana has been majorly Not Fun this year.
And it’s particularly Not Fun on Monday nights because malls, innately depressing places, get even more depressing after dark, and we are actually there working until after they switch off the lights and shut down the escalators and lock the great glass entrance doors.
Last night, I was surrounded by a bunch of sixty-ish white guys who kept calling me, “Pat.”
“I don’t like to be called Pat,” I told them early in the evening with an attempt at a pleasant smile.
“But your name is so hard to say,” one of them grinned. “I mean—PA-tri-whatever-it-is? You need a shorter nickname.”
Fuck you, I thought. May you contract prostate cancer. May your wife run off with your exterminator. May your basement flood. May your grandchildren repeat the second grade.
Later in the evening, this guy had a problem with a 1099-R for a client that I had done the intake on.
The box “Taxable Amount Not Determined” had been checked, so he was attempting to run the 1099-R through an arcane mathematical formula called the Bogarde Calculator.
“You should have taken down the date the client retired,” the guy sniffed.
“Not necessary,” I said. “There were no employee contributions to the retirement fund, so the entire amount is taxable.”
“The training said if the ‘Taxable Amount Not Determined’ box is checked, we have to use the Bogarde Calculator.”
“But think about it,” I said. “Jones didn’t make any contributions to his retirement fund. No part of the money has been previously taxed. Therefore, it’s all taxable.”
“That’s not the way we were trained,” the guy repeated, and I thought, You are so fucking stupid, it’s amazing you can find your own dick when you stand up to pee.
My last client for the night was this incredibly ill-tempered woman in her late 70s who was just sour-sour-sour throughout the entire intake process, complaining throughout of those people.
Those people were all around her, playing their loud music, jostling her as they rushed past, conspiring to make her life miserable.
For some bizarre reason, EIC this year is being computed using 2019 tax returns, so she had brought in tax returns for 2019 and 2020.
And when I looked those past year returns over, I saw that her signature was subtly changing. Decisive strokes on the 2019 return had grown wobbly.
Dementia, I thought. I wonder if she even knows?
You make up narratives about the people you interview. You claim telepathic insights into their lives. And in my narrative of this woman’s life, she had dementia and she was all alone, so that even though she was a complete pain in the ass, I began to feel dreadfully, dreadfully sorry for her.
Pathos on top of aggravation is almost as bad a combination as beer on top of tequila.
###
This morning, I must draft another To Do List.
One filled with car maintenance items, dental issues (I broke a veneer) and pet vaccinations on top of the usual bill payments and Remuneration.
And I am just like, What is the point of being alive?
I long to return to my home planet where hazelnut truffles are health food, personal insecurity is an attractive quality that earns you the esteem of others, and there are always new episodes of Law & Order.
Instead, I’m stuck here.
I think because I wanted someone to complain to last night.
But since there wasn’t anyone to complain to, the discontent festered—kinda the same way a tickle in the back of your throat metamorphoses overnight into a full-blown grippe if you don’t pop zinc losenges and Vitamin C.
###
TaxBwana has been majorly Not Fun this year.
And it’s particularly Not Fun on Monday nights because malls, innately depressing places, get even more depressing after dark, and we are actually there working until after they switch off the lights and shut down the escalators and lock the great glass entrance doors.
Last night, I was surrounded by a bunch of sixty-ish white guys who kept calling me, “Pat.”
“I don’t like to be called Pat,” I told them early in the evening with an attempt at a pleasant smile.
“But your name is so hard to say,” one of them grinned. “I mean—PA-tri-whatever-it-is? You need a shorter nickname.”
Fuck you, I thought. May you contract prostate cancer. May your wife run off with your exterminator. May your basement flood. May your grandchildren repeat the second grade.
Later in the evening, this guy had a problem with a 1099-R for a client that I had done the intake on.
The box “Taxable Amount Not Determined” had been checked, so he was attempting to run the 1099-R through an arcane mathematical formula called the Bogarde Calculator.
“You should have taken down the date the client retired,” the guy sniffed.
“Not necessary,” I said. “There were no employee contributions to the retirement fund, so the entire amount is taxable.”
“The training said if the ‘Taxable Amount Not Determined’ box is checked, we have to use the Bogarde Calculator.”
“But think about it,” I said. “Jones didn’t make any contributions to his retirement fund. No part of the money has been previously taxed. Therefore, it’s all taxable.”
“That’s not the way we were trained,” the guy repeated, and I thought, You are so fucking stupid, it’s amazing you can find your own dick when you stand up to pee.
My last client for the night was this incredibly ill-tempered woman in her late 70s who was just sour-sour-sour throughout the entire intake process, complaining throughout of those people.
Those people were all around her, playing their loud music, jostling her as they rushed past, conspiring to make her life miserable.
For some bizarre reason, EIC this year is being computed using 2019 tax returns, so she had brought in tax returns for 2019 and 2020.
And when I looked those past year returns over, I saw that her signature was subtly changing. Decisive strokes on the 2019 return had grown wobbly.
Dementia, I thought. I wonder if she even knows?
You make up narratives about the people you interview. You claim telepathic insights into their lives. And in my narrative of this woman’s life, she had dementia and she was all alone, so that even though she was a complete pain in the ass, I began to feel dreadfully, dreadfully sorry for her.
Pathos on top of aggravation is almost as bad a combination as beer on top of tequila.
###
This morning, I must draft another To Do List.
One filled with car maintenance items, dental issues (I broke a veneer) and pet vaccinations on top of the usual bill payments and Remuneration.
And I am just like, What is the point of being alive?
I long to return to my home planet where hazelnut truffles are health food, personal insecurity is an attractive quality that earns you the esteem of others, and there are always new episodes of Law & Order.
Instead, I’m stuck here.
