The Ides of April
Julius Caesar died on the ides of March. He should have waited a month and done it with the rest of us over income tax returns.
But I suppose when you're emperor, you look forward to getting all that money from the rest of us. So maybe we were lucky he got it a month early, though doubtless there was some other emperor wannabe with his hand out waiting for the peons to fork over the cash. There always is.
I'll have to ask Michelle Styles. She knows those sorts of things because she writes about gladiators and such. Emperors, too, for all I know.
What I really know is I hate this time of year. I have to sort out all of last year's receipts and stuff (which I also did right after Christmas so I could make a ballpark guess as to what the heck was going on and pay up then whatever I owed for the fourth quarter of last year) and then I have to verify it and then turn right around and do it again for the first quarter of this year. That's overkill, if you ask me.
It's like spending the day getting a root canal of your brain. I hate it. But -- ta-da! -- I'm finished with it. I locked myself in my office, made impressive little piles of paper, added the numbers on all of them, filled in the blanks and now it's the CPA's turn. Lucky him.
Of course today, when I dropped it off at his office so he could re-add my columns of figures and figure out all the stuff that I can't get my brain around, his office looked like he'd just brought it up from a week in a Tennessee tornado. Usually he's all neat and orderly. Obviously there's a hidden side to him that appears during the last week of tax season.
Why wait? you say. It's inevitable. Just do it. Well, yes, and of course I did. But why hurry? And besides, I had to wait until after March 31 so I could see if someone was going to send me money (hahahahaha) and to figure out if I needed to buy more reams of paper last quarter or this. And, of course, there were all those pesky pieces of paper to round up and keep track of. It's like herding cats. Only cats are probably more fun.
Speaking of which, if you haven't seen it, you should check out the wonderful EDS tv commercial which aired during the Super Bowl a few years ago. I sent it to Kate Walker a while back and she sent it on to Anna Lucia, and for all I know it's now making its way around the world in blogs. But in case you never got to see it, check it out.
I don't know what EDS does when it's at home but you can get an idea from herding cats -- or at least I hope you can. I think it's my favorite commercial of all time.
Anyway, now I am done with the taxes -- except for paying them of course, which is also inevitable -- so I can get back to weaving my hammock for Spence. What fun.
Next thing you know I'll be thinking how much fun it is to clean the oven.
But I suppose when you're emperor, you look forward to getting all that money from the rest of us. So maybe we were lucky he got it a month early, though doubtless there was some other emperor wannabe with his hand out waiting for the peons to fork over the cash. There always is.
I'll have to ask Michelle Styles. She knows those sorts of things because she writes about gladiators and such. Emperors, too, for all I know.
What I really know is I hate this time of year. I have to sort out all of last year's receipts and stuff (which I also did right after Christmas so I could make a ballpark guess as to what the heck was going on and pay up then whatever I owed for the fourth quarter of last year) and then I have to verify it and then turn right around and do it again for the first quarter of this year. That's overkill, if you ask me.
It's like spending the day getting a root canal of your brain. I hate it. But -- ta-da! -- I'm finished with it. I locked myself in my office, made impressive little piles of paper, added the numbers on all of them, filled in the blanks and now it's the CPA's turn. Lucky him.
Of course today, when I dropped it off at his office so he could re-add my columns of figures and figure out all the stuff that I can't get my brain around, his office looked like he'd just brought it up from a week in a Tennessee tornado. Usually he's all neat and orderly. Obviously there's a hidden side to him that appears during the last week of tax season.
Why wait? you say. It's inevitable. Just do it. Well, yes, and of course I did. But why hurry? And besides, I had to wait until after March 31 so I could see if someone was going to send me money (hahahahaha) and to figure out if I needed to buy more reams of paper last quarter or this. And, of course, there were all those pesky pieces of paper to round up and keep track of. It's like herding cats. Only cats are probably more fun.
Speaking of which, if you haven't seen it, you should check out the wonderful EDS tv commercial which aired during the Super Bowl a few years ago. I sent it to Kate Walker a while back and she sent it on to Anna Lucia, and for all I know it's now making its way around the world in blogs. But in case you never got to see it, check it out.
I don't know what EDS does when it's at home but you can get an idea from herding cats -- or at least I hope you can. I think it's my favorite commercial of all time.
Anyway, now I am done with the taxes -- except for paying them of course, which is also inevitable -- so I can get back to weaving my hammock for Spence. What fun.
Next thing you know I'll be thinking how much fun it is to clean the oven.
posted by Anne McAllister at 7:14 PM
2 Comments:
LOL on the wannabe emperors with their hands out. Actually the Roman tax year started and ended in March...It is why to this day the UK tax year starts and ends on the 5 april. It used to be 25 March, but when they changed the calender and took 11 days out, landlords thought they would go short and so the tax year end date was changed.
Religious and other posts started in January.
I am a font of useless knowledge.
See! I knew Michelle would have the answers! I didn't know when UK taxes were due. Our tax year is the calendar year, but taxes for the previous year are due April 15. Hence the furor going on right now.
When I'm doing genealogy research I run into that calendar year business where the year started in March of what amounts now to 'the following year.' As if it isn't confusing enough to name everyone and his brother (literally) William!
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