Month: March 2016

April sounds like a beautiful time of the year, doesn’t it? Flowers are blooming even in the most stubborn of wintery states, the trees are beginning to leaf out, the days are warmer and longer, and flip flops are getting a little closer to being the choice of footwear for the day, unless you are lucky enough to be me and live in Florida, where every day is flip flop day! And then along comes the IRS!

It’s not the taxes. Okay, maybe it is, but it’s more about the paperwork! Even if you happen to be one of those mythical creatures that receives a refund, you still have to grind through the paperwork. Even if you use a CPA, because your taxes are complicated, not because you’re lazy, you have to collect the paperwork. Aaarrrgh! Who wants to spend Saturday and Sunday doing that? It’s spring for heaven’s sake!

Then what happens when your situation doesn’t fit into one of their nice little neat boxes? Our daughter ran into this. She’s always had a problem with, “One size fits all”, because it really doesn’t. I love these tax programs, like TurboTax. They are great programs for simple returns, but they are only as good as the people who write them, and the people who write them obviously didn’t think about every situation when making up their little boxes, or perhaps they’re just a little too cozy with the IRS, who excels at vague and ambiguous. Now, I know there is a solution to her situation. I’ve seen it on the IRS form, but there is no pathway to get there from here, because there is not an appropriate box to check that will take you there. Now what?

Well, you call, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, or you opt to let them call you back, whereupon you get a robo call telling you to press 1 if you still need to talk to someone, or 3 if you no longer need help. Now, my question to you is this, why would you still be holding if you no longer needed help? If you are doing that, you are way in over your head attempting to do your own taxes. I pressed 1, whereby Ms. Robot said, “Thank you” and hung up. What!?

I do have good news though. You will find April 16th through the 30th both beautiful and relaxing, with time on your hands to enjoy it. It’s something to look forward to while wading through the paperwork.

My husband, Kim, and I went to the movies last night. We don’t go to the movies a lot, but if there is something worth the price tag of a night at the movies, we’ll go. That doesn’t keep us from complaining about the price, and it doesn’t end with the tickets!

I suppose we shouldn’t complain about the price. We live in an area of the country where, especially this time of year, there are a lot of senior citizens. According to AARP Kim and I are seniors, but not at the movies. At the movies you have to be 60 to be considered a senior. That’s not us, but thank goodness a lot of these young kids that work the box office have been raised with good manners, and they don’t ask. They look us over pretty good and just give us the senior price. Haven’t decided if I’m grateful or insulted. I blaming it on Kim and his gray goatee.

A senior ticket cost $9.64. Doesn’t matter if it’s a night showing or a matinee, always $9.64. Seems like a weird price. Do the math on two tickets and it comes out to $19.28. Even weirder. A regular adult ticket costs $12.60 for an evening show. Ouch! Given the difference between adult and senior, I’ve decided I’m grateful for gray goatees and good manners.

Inside they don’t care. Popcorn is popcorn. Doesn’t matter how old you are. We purchased a medium bag and a bottle of water. Let’s be clear here. One popcorn, one bottle of water. $7.99 for the popcorn and $4.95 for a bottle of water! Dasani, not Perrier. Total, $12.94! I smiled. You have to see the humor in a $5.00 bottle of water, that’s essentially California tap water.

In real life a case of 24 bottles of Dasani water costs $4.98. You’ll remember we just paid $4.95 for one! If Walmart sold that water for movie prices, those 24 bottles would cost $118.80! Yikes! I understand the need to make a profit, and I’ve heard that movie theaters make their money on the concessions, not the movie. No kidding! I’m pretty sure we have moved well beyond profit, and we’re looking for a different word here. After all, Walmart is making a profit too. They are selling that same bottle for .21 cents. If I were to pay $2.50 at the theater I think it would be fair to both of us. The popcorn is harder to figure out, but I’m going to give it to them, though bite down on a hard kernel and you could be looking at a trip to the dentist. If that were to happen, we’d have to re-evaluate.

Kim and I enjoyed the movie, the popcorn, and the water. As we were leaving he handed me the bottle, “Drink that last sip. It’s worth .50 cents”. Good point. I finished it off!

 

I was searching for an anniversary card for my son and daughter-in-law the other day, and I mean searching! You wouldn’t have thought it would have taken me so long. It wasn’t like there was a lot to choose from, and the ones that were “topic” appropriate, weren’t appropriate at all! I settled for a blank one. I could write something infinitely better than what these knuckleheads were being paid to write!

I enjoy funny cards as well as sentimental ones. Depends on the occasion and what feelings I’m trying to convey. I do not find demeaning cards amusing, nor bathroom humor, nor sophomoric sex jokes. To even use the word humor in context with those things is a grave disservice to the word. And yes, I roll my eyes at people who think it’s funny.

If you give your spouse an anniversary card that says, “They say married people live longer”, to which the other person responds, “It only feels like it”, don’t be surprised if your spouse gives you a card with the number of a divorce attorney on it! Who thinks a card like that is amusing? If you do, you’re in the wrong relationship!

Ellen DeGeneres once said that, “If you have to say, ‘just kidding’, you’re not doing it right. If you’re just kidding, we’d both be laughing”. You have to look hard at some of these greeting cards to find anybody laughing. If you stumble across one that would make everybody laugh, buy it! Buy them all!

The sentimental ones can be a little easier, but a lot of time they say too much, filling both inside pages leaving me with barely enough room to sign my name. What if I wanted to say something? “Sorry, leave that to the professionals!” Other times they don’t say enough and you kind of wonder if they even tried. Now you have to do half their job for them and come up with just the right words, when that is why you bought the card in the first place!

Kevin James did a comic bit about women buying greeting cards. It was pretty funny and fairly accurate. We do take forever. Guilty as charged. He said we look, and think, then look some more. We are on the hunt, which requires patience. Once we find the perfect card we check the price, then put it back! Been there, done that! What are they printing these cards on? Must be something very rare! I finally decided on an appropriate card, funny, yet not insulting. I flipped it over and saw $6.95! It went back! How about we find something “perfect” in the $3.95 range! It’s got four words on it! Six tops, for crying out loud! Tell you what. I won’t complain about paying $6.00 if the creative think tank does a little more creative thinking.