Tables and Taxes

I got up in a perfectly good mood and went downstairs to make a good, hot cup of tea. I approached my dining room table, but did not sit down. I glared at it. Emotions surged through my hands and I gripped the cup hard. Anger boiled. Rebellion built. Insurrection screamed.

The table was completely extended, big enough to serve a dinner party of 10. But no one was going to come and laugh and clink wine glasses, oh no. Not until the contents of this table, the piles of checks, the stacks of forms, the calculator, the checkbook, that covered every inch of its oaky surface, were cleared. No, not until the day of reckoning came. That day would come when it all got bundled up, its pertinent numbers crunched on a form, and it all got carried to the Tax Man. There, it would then cover his table and our dinner could be served again.

Until the fateful meeting with the Tax Man, every day, I would look at this. Its stacks demanded attention, and were designed to bother me, and bother me they did. This was constantly what I was supposed to be attending to instead of whatever it was I was doing. It foretold checks to write, withdrawals, and the concocting of deductions. It was nothing good.

Why is it so much trouble to give money to Uncle? Not only do you have to pay your medical bills, you then have to find a year’s worth of medical bills, find a year’s worth of measley insurance payments, add them, subtract them, and itemize them—all in hopes of getting back money you have already given.

And then there is the accountant. By the time the whole family has had the taxes done, the accountant bill alone could have paid for half a year’s education for a third grader. Think of what this could mean to starving school districts.

Last night I had a dream about the dining room table. In that dream, a man with a tall hat was informing me that I needed to estimate how many breathes I took that year, subtract the number of mouthfuls of food I consumed, and estimate what I was going to owe in tax dollars next year. In that dream, I just went home and laid myself down on the dining room table, closed my mouth tightly and tried not to breathe.

I woke up with a great tenderness for all of the groaning dining tables across the great nation with their burden of papers, and all the suppers eaten as people crouched with their plates on their laps.