the deadline looms

After weeks and weeks of procrastinating, I simply had to relent and file my tax return. While I hate filing tax returns of any kind, the procrastinating was…at least in part…a feeble attempt to ward off the post-tax depression that was sure to set in upon seeing just how little money I really made last year. Logically, I know that the money I earned was incredibly meager, but until an actual number is given, I can pretend it was more than I thought it would be.

As it turns out, my 2004 earnings are very small indeed. So incredibly small in its smallness that the number could be found cowering in the corner of my tax return because the other, larger numbers on the sheet, were making fun of my small number for being so very small. A number so tiny in the number world that it came with its own footnote which read, ‘this is what you made? How in the world can anyone survive on THAT?!?’

And I have every belief that my tax return for last year, with its mini-sized numbers, could have been found in an elementary math book somewhere…a problem that the students would have easily been able to compute except for the fact that to fill in line 3a they had to reference page 211, paragraph four, to find the instructions on how to figure out what the hell was supposed to go on line 3a, and then cross-check this figure with the tax chart, found on page 455, to calculate the given tax rate in regards to the ridiculously small number which was my salary.

But persevere I did. And after checking to make sure that I couldn’t claim any goldfish as dependents and that there was no box to mark off tax deductions in the form of ‘drinks bought for friends at overpriced bars’, I had to accept the fact that I STILL owe money. Money that the government can obviously see I didn’t make last year and which has me wondering how, when your salary was such a small number, you can owe such a big number in taxes.

So I’ve determined, in all my educated wisdom, that I need money. And while I simply cannot think of any way to actually ‘make’ money, surely I can think of ways in which to ‘save’ money. And I have a sure-fire plan to do this.

Lately, I’ve been saving big bucks on car washing. Now, each time I go to the gas station, I’ve been helping myself to the windshield washing bucket next to the gas tanks. Not only do I wash my windshield, but also use that little squeegee thing to clean my whole car…hood, trunk, roof, doors…yes, a complete car washing free of charge.

And while the result looks much like you’d expect a car washed with windshield washing fluid and a squeegee to look…meaning crappy…by my estimation I save anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar each time I wash my car. And by stopping once a day, I figure that this is equal to about $365 dollars worth of income.

Of course, if the government ever starts taxing ‘imaginary’ income, I’m screwed.