one after 909. errrrr...131

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street.
If you sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
If you get to cold, I’ll tax the heat.
-George Harrison

I got my last W-2 on Saturday. Over the last few weeks I’ve also been getting all my 1099s and other junk from assorted quasi-employers, financial institutions, highway bandits, and drug dealers. I collected these carefully and put them in a safe place, fully cognizant that I would wait until April 14th to get to work. And then just to file an extension as per usual.

But as luck would have it, I couldn’t sleep last night. And so, at around 2 a.m. this morning…I whipped out the internet, printed out some IRS forms, and got busy on my taxes. This has to be some sort of record, right? Who files their taxes in January?

Nerdery, I suppose. But I also knew I had a refund coming. Which added some motivation.

I did run into some trouble. Calculating my gambling losses presented a challenge, mostly because I couldn’t figure out what my broken thumb translated to in real dollars. But I did make some pretty cool decisions. For instance, did you know that daily meals at Chimys and Rosa’s can be written off as an education expense when you’re studying for the bar exam? I’m pretty sure the IRS didn’t either.*

*Disclaimer to government readers – I didn’t actually write that off. At least not all of it.