stuff and stuff

Approaching the downhill side of my vacation, and it's been busy. I've been running about like a one-armed paperhanger for sure.

As always, things are happening. Highlights and lowlights so far.

1) My protracted battle with the North Korea of New England (The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to everyone else) came to an abrupt and conclusive end. Rather than send me a bill telling me that after rechecking the numbers (at my request 2 months ago), I owed $1500 more on my taxes from two years ago, they just took the money directly from my checking account.
It seems logical that either your bank or your government would tell you before the state takes money directly from you without either a court order or some sort of notification.
Well, rather than sour grapes, I got to pass the buck. "Honey? Remember that car I don't want to buy you next weekend? Guess what?

In what I swear is a completely unrelated coincidence, my wife now hates the Massachusetts government, too.

I call that one a wash. I did my civic duty, completely unintentionally, of course, and I can avoid a big-ass car payment for another month or two.

2) Some dick steals the side-view mirror off of my truck.

That really happened. It cost almost nothing to replace (they left the frame doohickey, merely popping out the mirror from the assembly), but still... I'm on the lookout for other Dodge Rams here at the Ant Farm. Everyone is suspect.

3). St. Patrick's day- was spent cleaning junk from my mom's basement, which got flooded after the record rains here last weekend. Luckily, I celebrated so thoroughly the first three days while it was actually raining that I was completely uninterested in anything to do with alcohol or any activity involving food or drink.

4). Something positive- my niece asked me to teach her to drive. Considering that this young lady has no one to guide her into a career or other intellectual interests, and no one to be a cheerleader as she develops her own already-considerable talents with the English language, teaching her to drive ought to be easy.

5). rampant guilt. I fussed at one of my brothers, who's in recovery from a nasty addiction. I complained about my sister's sleeping habits, after she spent an overnight pumping out my mother's basement before collapsing just prior to my showing up to finish the job. And then I go 100% completely sick-dog on a woman in a car, like get-out-of-the-truck-sprint-at-her-car and point fingers and yell, because she made me slam on the brakes and go up on the sidewalk rather than go all monster-truck on her while my wife and kid were in my truck.

6). come to think at it, the idiot in #5 is lucky at having just been yelled at. Had their been anyone on the sidewalk, I would have happily plowed her Prius under, probably killing her and putting myself in 20 years of psychotherapy in the process.


So, storm aside, I call it a wash.