2903 Pulling taxes

Thursday, March 18, 2010

My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
-- Jack Nicholson --

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My mother called my brother a son-of-a-bitch once, and he said to her, "So what does that make you?" She got it, but I don't know that it stopped her.

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I wanted to visit car dealerships across the river today, but Piper called and urged me to put together the stuff for taxes, so I spent the afternoon doing that. The only thing I don't have is the receipt for real estate taxes paid in February. All financial and tax-related stuff goes into one box next to my little living room desk, so I don't know how I could have misplaced it. I dug up the past year's check carbons, and wouldn't you know - the one packet missing is the February one. All dead check carbon packs go into the third desk drawer - how could it not be there? I went online to my checking account history, but couldn't identify which February check would have been the tax one. I'm stuck. I wonder what was going on in my head last February.

So I estimated it, and wrote a note to The Angel. Let's hope he reads it.

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There's a phone application now that supposedly makes it easy to put together a group for lunch. It reminded me of an incident in the early '90s. Edith was transferring to Rochester, so we planned a huge good-bye luncheon for her at a tavern near the office, with cards and gifts, and the management chain also invited so we could pretty much take the afternoon off. The list came to something like 60 people.

It was supposed to be a surprise. There was a core group of five of us who had lunch together every day, so what we'd do is just decide to go out for lunch, and there everyone would be. Surprise!

On the appointed day, people were quietly sneaking out of the building. We went to the restaurant, and it was all set up, with a head table and flowers and banners and everything. We sat, and we waited. And waited.

And eventually it occurred to us that no one had invited Edith.
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