Do the days leading up to April 15^th, fill your stomach with knots?  Do you get minor or even major panic attacks thinking about if you filled out the forms correctly as you drop the envelope into the mailbox, never to be seen again?

Or do you simply shutdown and have to have your better half or your CPA take over this yearly task and numb yourself with Martinis until you know that the deed is done, signed and mailed on time?

If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone.  Many Americans every year struggle with this terrible anxiety which takes years off their life and adds wrinkles and grey hairs to strange places on their bodies.

But now that it is the end of April, and let’s just assume you were a good law-abiding citizen and got ‘er done on time and honestly, the weight is off your shoulders and you can forget about that silly Income Tax – for some of us another year, some quarterly…

You can only imagine my shock when I sent my Kansas return enclosed with a personal check to the good ole State of Kansas one week early, so I could “get outta Dodge” and head for the beach (which if you don’t know is one of the methods of dealing with the “IRS Anxiety Mental Diagnosis” – Step #53, I believe) and after a week of paradise and relaxation I returned to this in my mailbox.

Now, I don’t think I did anything to tick off my mailperson.  I don’t think my children put anything vile in the box.  We don’t have pets, so they didn’t leave any deposits in front of the mailbox for the postal worker to step in.  Nor have I ever shot the evil eye or the “hairy eyeball” at them.  In actuality, I like to wave in passing.  It’s a Midwestern thing that makes us who we are and makes everyone else in the country make fun of us, but GET OVER IT!!  WE’RE FRIENDLY DAMNIT!

Not only did I receive a plastic package from the U.S. Postmaster that said, “WE CARE” in an obnoxiously large font, but then they carefully taped up a one inch mangled piece of our personal check to the state, a 2-inch jagged coupon from my CPA, and the cremains remains of the envelope in which we carefully had placed in the post office employees hands for safe keeping.

God knows, I hope the seizure of that employee was only a small one and I hope no one lost an appendage during the postmarking of my Income Tax envelope; but please say a small prayer for the person who decides the amount of our late fee due to this nightmare fiasco.

I did take my 2 darling children with me the next day to visit the postmaster and ask him to send my pitiful NEW voucher and check by certified mail to the state.  Now picture this…my children were starving, tired and dirty, and one was actually laying prone on the floor of the post office floor.  I’m not sure if he felt more sorry for the pathetic situation of my limp late check or my children, so he helped me out.

Can I tell you, I whistled “God Bless America” all the way home and would have waved a flag out the window if I had one handy!  I’m glad I have another year for this tax stuff.  It wore me out this year!