Aidez moi!!

Every year I swear I'll get my taxes done in January. Then I shoot for April. Next thing I know it's September and my accountant tells me I face a 25% fee increase if my information isn't in her hands by September 15th. There's nothing like a good deadline - one with a bit of pocket pain attached, to make you finally face the music.

Why am I writing a blog entry instead of drilling away at the paperwork until it's done? Because nothing brings out the procrastinator in me like this one task. I can think of at least a hundred things that should take precedence.  After the hundred things are done, I get an attack of ADD.  I can't focus on anything for longer than 30 minutes without taking a break, which leads to a distraction and then another break and so on. I've read that there's some kind of ego depletion phenomenon that occurs when excessive procrastination sets in and I believe I suffer this. Who am I anyway and why am I trapped here wallowing in paper?

Every year I imagine the dreaded audit is imminent.  In my nightmare scenario, I mail in the return and some young zealot gets hold of it and finds hundreds of errors. A viciously precise scrutiny ensues and a precious year of my life is wasted justifying my $19.95 subscription to Food and Wine magazine.

As I shuffle the papers around, I find myself gradually getting numb. My tongue went first in this year's case of  tax paralysis, starting with a specific cluster of nerves down the middle - I can barely cry out, "Save me from all of this....someone, anyone!" In other years, 1992 if I remember correctly, the finger nerves, specifically the nerves involved in gripping a pencil, failed utterly. In '04, I couldn't keep that rubber finger thingy on and it would fly off my paper flipping finger like a boomerang or something out of a Kung Fu movie. If I was prone to headaches I suppose I'd develop one of those. Stressed, my body is sending out random alarms. I need a Canadian aspirin or two (they put some codeine in the mix) and I have a bottle of 500 reserved specifically for the temporary relief of the pain in the ass our tax code has become.

My husband took one look at me a few minutes ago and decided to go to KFC and pick up some fried chicken for dinner. I'm headed for the wine bottle.