It's Tax Day!

(insert the obscenity of your choice here.)

About 3:45 today, I still hadn't heard from my tax service, so I made one last phone call hoping to get through during what is the busiest last-minute dance between simple serf and federal overlord.  I finally got something other than a busy signal, was told everything was waiting, packed my bags and headed to pick up my taxes as fast as my little car could carry me.

I hadn't had the courage to ask what the damage would be on the phone.  I didn't feel that I could stand it if I owed much.  I have no money right now, debts everywhere and only tiny trickles of income.

When I sat down, I knew from the expression on my accountant's face that the news was not a return.  And it wasn't.  It really wasn't.  The amount would have been negligible for many people I know.  For me, it started those little shivers of full-scale panic moving under what I was desperately trying to remain a calm facade.

I held it together long enough to  write two checks which I had nothing in the bank to cover.  I held it long enough to walk across the street to the local post office where the register was locking up and causing delays.  I held it together long enough to get back across the street and into my car, to get my vehicle pointed toward home.

Then all those steel rivets sheered away, and I fell apart.

I cried so hard that I couldn't see the road.  I was shaking so hard that the only thing keeping me from falling over in the seat was the white-knuckled grip on my steering wheel.  All I could think of was that I was working so hard, trying to meet all my responsibilities, and the result of that was....nothing.  No forward motion.  Nothing gained.  Only a big finger waggling smack from the government at the end of the year.  Only a request for money I don't have.  I passed a cemetery during that trip and saw a sign on its chainlink fence advertising the cost of a plot.  I remember thinking, "My God.  It even costs money to die.  I don't even have enough money to die..."

I managed to get to Mom and Dad's, and I sat with them a long time.  I moved money from the account intended to pay for my plane ticket to Turkey, very nearly emptying it, and I felt my stomach turn over.  The debt to the nation is paid.  As to how I am ever going to find the money now to go to Turkey this summer, I have absolutely no idea.  Right now, it seems more remote than the face of the moon.

Now I'm just waiting for a night of nightmares, and all will be complete.