Wednesday Folly: Taxes and Popes

YESTERDAY, I PROCRASTINATED AGAIN...waiting the last possible moment to calculate, sign and mail my state assessment property tax...all because I had to pay a hefty administration processing fee the state charges just to file the return! hrmph! So I dilly dally-ed and at 4:52 , merely 8 minutes before the post office closes, I flew out my house, grabbing the baby and a stapler and my half signed checks along the way.

Is it me, or did the clerks at the post office sound a little too gleeful to exclaim, "Sorry mam, we're closed," as I tried to squeeze my foot in the door and force myself into the tiny post office ? You have to go to the post office [insert far away office here] to file late today.

hrmph!

I tried the local UPS store. In the past, that store saved me from having to miss a postal deadline. "Well, we can take it." said the college coed clerk behind the counter, "But I'm afraid it's too late for an April 15th postmark."

oh pooh!! STRIKE 2.

My last and final chance was to head down to the post office that closes at midnight that I knew would be crazy and full of people. After Trinihubby came home to watch the kids, I ventured down to the Capitol Hill post office around 9pm. Postal clerks were lined along the medians with plastic bins and folks were driving by dropping their returns in the bins...their STAMPED returns! After signing, stapling and folding my returns in their respective envelopes, (I had to file for my two businesses and two non profits I'm on the board of and am the de facto lawyer for), I COULDN'T FIND MY BOOK OF STAMPS! oh shite! I left them on the office table.

Darn it!

So I had to actually park the car, illegally of course because every quarter inch was taken up with another late filing procrastinator, and get out and trek up the stairs, past the tables of workers collecting filings of the walk ins and get in line behind the 20+ waiting for stamps and to weigh their returns. MISERY!

And the place was full of at least 100 patrons in various lines, some of them still had calculators and were tabulating and verifying numbers. People were signing checks, tearing out perforated edges, folding, stapling...what a circus!

Alas, I escaped, purchased my 3 stamps, dropped it off to assure my April 15th postmark and with a sigh of relief went home.

And on the way home, I passed the guardrails set up around the Catholic University of America and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in preparation for the papal visit from Pope Benedict, the first visit to the US since he became Pope in April 2005. As the pontiff travels to the Shrine where he is scheduled to address 300 U.S. bishops, it is expected that 8,000 will line the streets to get a glimpse of him in his Popemobile.

Me? I'll be at my favorite spa enjoying a Spa Week Facial and Pedicure Special! After all that stress yesterday, I need a break! ha!

photo: James M. Thresher/Washington Post