Filing My Frickin' Federal Tax Forms (A Fare for Frequently Using the 'F' word)

I just finished filing my taxes. As soon as my W-2 came in, I was on it. I used to have my accountant do them, but I decided I would do my own since they were so much simpler now. Simpler? That’s what they call simple? You have to be a f**king genius to know WTF they are asking. I’ve never seen anything more complicated in my entire life. I could probably cure cancer before I could figure out how to fill out a 1040 form.

I believe I am now qualified to work for the Internal Revenue Service. Ok...maybe Turbo Tax is the Einstein, but you still have to kind of have a clue what the hell they are asking. My Google was blowing up with all my questions. I couldn't even get past how many dependents I had. Seriously. In my eyes, my kids will always be my dependents because no matter how old they are...they still come to me for money. Doesn't that make them dependent on me? I believe so. But the government doesn't. I swear...I need to have a talk with the commissioner of the IRS regarding who's a dependent and who isn't.

I think I should be able to declare my dog. She costs me a fortune. They didn't ask about any pet dependents though, to my chagrin. I believe vet bills, pet food, doggie meds, grooming...all should be deductible. We ARE taking care of other living beings, are we not? I think we should be able to write them off. Obedience school should be as big a deduction as college. It's education, right? It wouldn't matter to me, though; because it’s obvious I never sent my dog to obedience school, in case you noticed how not well behaved she is. I don't want anyone disciplining my little pup...it makes me too upset. But had I, I would've liked it to have been deductible.

Some of the questions they ask are just mind boggling. I honestly have no clue what they are talking about. They start out saying "TurboTax makes doing your taxes easy, with step-by-step guidance, like a GPS." Like a GPS? I'm thinking GPS isn't an acronym for global positioning system. I believe it's saying..."Geez...Pretty [f**king] Stupid" trying to do your own taxes. But hey...I like to live dangerously. And hopefully legally. I guess I'll find out if they call for an audit. So off I went on the Turbo Tax Highway with my GPS.

I was lucky I could answer the 'Personal info' section. Just barely. "Tell us what happened to you last year." Seriously? You've got that much time to hear about my year? Oh...financially. I get it. I was almost ready to write my life story on my tax forms.

Do you think people lie on 'donations'? Like I can remember how many items of clothing I gave away, what sizes, and what price category they fell into. I've moved and cleaned out so many homes in the last few years, I've probably donated more than my net worth. But, by golly, I'm going to itemize how many shirts, jeans, shoes, purses and pajamas I donated and what were designer and non-designer. I'm sure that has to make a huge difference in my charitable donation deduction. And how many items of each? I admit...I'm a little anal about keeping records, but I have to say...I didn't itemize prior to handing my twenty-five GLAD trash bags full of clothes to the tatted up, long haired, drugged out Good Will guy, nor did he check off detailed items when he handed me the blank receipt for my records. According to my itemized receipt I filled out after I left there…I was the most generous benefactor they’ve ever seen…giving them everything I owned just short of my car.

'Did you have any medical bills?' Really? That's like asking me if I have a bowel movement every day. It's a love/hate thing. Of course I have medical bills. Unfortunately I have way too many and have frequent flyer miles at the doctor's office. Kind of like frequenting the toilet although you wish you didn't have to. This section took me a while, moaning and groaning, if you know what I mean.  

'Did you purchase any eye glasses or contacts?' Of course I did...that's how I can read this mish mosh of a ridiculous tax return. How else can I tell what the hell you are trying to ask me if I didn't purchase f**king glasses? Maybe next year I can get x-ray glasses to see through what you are trying to ask. But thank you so much for letting me deduct them. I appreciate that and find it a little strange that they are deductible, but quite pleased. May I deduct my 10 sessions at the shrink that I will need after having a nervous breakdown from deciphering my tax returns, too, please?  

Trying to figure out my filing status alone scares the shit out of me. It takes me 15 minutes to decipher if I'm still considered 'Head of Household' and every year they send me the frickin' questionnaire to be sure I still qualify. Do you see anyone else in this house who is the f**king head? And if you do...please tell me who because I would happily give up that title to them. In fact, I would be happy to become a dependent, just for a short time. But they don't consider my daughter, who lives with me full time, is a part time student, pays no rent, no food, does absolutely nothing around the house, to be my dependent because she made over $3,700? Are you kidding me? $3,700? How do they come up with that amount of money to give her independence from me? She made out like a bandit on her tax return though...while I got screwed! But again...$3,700? Why so little? $37,000 maybe...but $3,700? I'm stupefied.

The way they determine if one of your children is a dependent is if you can answer YES to six questions. Can I tell you how long it took me to figure out what the questions were asking, let alone if I met all six requirements? There were double negatives that I must have read 18 times to figure out if I did meet what it asked or not. And some of the questions were 3 parts and I couldn’t figure out if I met the one part to satisfy the other parts. And then if you satisfy that one, it had to be in conjunction with the others. I felt like I was doing a Rubik’s Cube. And believe me, I never solved it.

‘Do you own any property?’ If I still owned property I would have many more deductions and wouldn’t have fired my accountant who could figure out how to file my tax returns and charge me the $600 he charged me because he did my taxes because I owned property. Of course I don’t own property. Now I kinda wish I did. It sure would’ve made filing my taxes a lot simpler. At least for me.

What's YOUR career path?

Choosing a career path is one of the most monumental decisions you will ever make in your life. There are some of us who know where we are headed right from childhood. We role play as kids and end up exactly where we planned, i.e. teachers, entertainers, etc. There are others who follow the lineage of the family, i.e. miners, lawyers, retail merchants. And then there are those who make you say, "Really? What were they thinking?"

Last night at Thanksgiving dinner, as always amongst 50+ somethings, the conversation goes back to bowel movements. Don't ask why. It's still a phenomenon to me. But I assume as we get older...our bowels just aren't as regular as they once were as kids, so we look forward to discussing it with our peers. Why you ask? I'm not sure but that brings me back to the original thought process I started with. Why would anyone CHOOSE to be a proctologist? I mean, what satisfaction could you possibly gain from looking up someone's asshole? I've thought about this quite a bit. Again, don't ask why. It has nothing to do with age because I've questioned this choice since I was in my 20's when I first had the unwilling pleasure of visiting one.

Have you ever gone to a proctologist? You know how doctors hang pictures in their offices of your digestive system, your bones, your heart, lungs, brain. Guess what proctologists have pictures of? That's right...that long and winding road through the colon to the rectum ending in the anus factimus (not a real word...I just liked the sound of it). Knowing that the rectum is the storage facility for feces, a mini silo if you will...please tell me what goes thru a human's mind to have this passion for exploring that map to the little hole within the tushy! What is the fascination you could possibly experience every day by checking out the rectal walls of another human? Could it be satisfying for them to see the humiliation we all, as patients, experience from putting our butts right up into their face. And I mean...RIGHT IN THEIR FACE. Take it from me...I've had that pleasure, and you can't imagine the bonding that you share with your physician. You also can't imagine what goes thru your head as you're prepping for the office visit.

Omitting my embarrassing reasons for my visit, I would like to share the thought process that I have to think all proctology patients have in common prior to entering that hell hole known as the proctologist's office.

·                     The shower. Let us scrub the area as thoroughly as we can and make sure we do not have to use the restroom immediately prior to the visit, so that there are no little pieces of Charmin hanging on for dear life in the general area.

·                     The timing of our pooping. Let us eat at an hour where the digestive system has time to move that food quickly thru our bodies and enter the porcelain potty prior to our visit.

·                     The type of foods we eat. Do NOT eat broccoli, cauliflower, beans or any Mexican food prior to our visit. The exploding gas compounds that may emanate from our anal canal would be sure to knock the doctor clear across the room since s(he) will be in such close proximity to our anal erectus (again...not a real word).

·                     The doctor's examining table position. Are we on all fours with our asses in the air so the doctor can be at a standing position with his face directly at eye level with the hole? Are we on our sides, in the fetal position, which brings us back to childhood and our vulnerability? Do we stand up, touch our toes and he leans into the butt?

·                     The accomplice. Who will his/her assistant be? Please don't let it be anyone we could possibly know.

·                     The waiting room. Again...please don't let ANY of the patients be someone I have ever encountered anywhere in the history of my existence.

Which brings me to my visit when I was in my 20's and not in that same frame of mind I am now, which is the "I don't give a shit" mode (no pun intended). Back then, embarrassment came much more readily. So this was not something I was easily embarking on.  I made it thru the waiting room experience. Whew...no one I recognized. Thank you very much. On to the examining room. Off came my clothes from the waist down with the sheet draping over the bottom part of my body, my feet dangling with my socks still on. Such a great look but ok..not so bad yet. The MALE doctor enters the room, introduces himself and asks why I am there. I explain my reasons and he tells me to lie down and lean over on my right side and draw my legs up to my chest. I am so thankful that I don't have to look him in the face during this procedure. I also tried to ignore the 20 inch needle he had put on his instrument table before telling me what position to assume. So there I am, facing the wall, butt exposed, beet red in the face, and I hear him open the door and tell his assistant, "Gloria, Please tell the 5 students it's ok to come in now to observe."

The rest is just a blur.