Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

I�m feeling taxed.

Sunday, Apr. 25, 2004
12:19 p.m.
Today I decide I will definitely start working on my taxes and I can�t find a very important document. I have looked everywhere (which actually means I have looked everywhere I think it should be but not where it actually is) and found the equivalent document which I must use to calculate next year�s taxes, but the one for this year has vanished. Damn.

My breasts are sore. There seems to be no good reason for this. At all. Usually after I ovulate my breasts ache, and they did this time around too. But the soreness is usually gone by the first day of menstruation, and my period is now over and my breasts still ache. Obviously I cannot be pregnant. So what gives? Is this a pre-menopausal gift? Take it back, I neither need it nor want it.

When my father died four years ago he left me and my brother investments in the forms of GIC's and T-Bills. Approximately one-third of this money belongs to my other brother, who does not live here and whose adopted country doesn�t allow holdings outside the country, or something like that. As a result, I end up looking after a chunk of money that is not mine, and there is some resentment involved, as if you couldn�t guess from my tone of voice. This money is divided between a GIC for which I receive an interest cheque annually, and a T-Bill, for which I do not. My brother�s income taxes are deducted from the cheque, and the remainder I deposit into my bank account and keep track of. If he wants it in cold, hard cash, I write him a cheque and he can take it to the bank and cash it himself. But you get the point.

The document I cannot find is the T-Bill that was issued at the end of 2002 and matured at the end of 2003, the interest of which I have to claim on my own taxes. I cannot find it (that doesn�t mean I won�t as soon as I�ve finished posting this) and entails a telephone call to the investment company to get the details. I also don�t have the fax from La Guilde for the union dues paid last year. That�s in the university receptionist�s box, which I can�t get to until tomorrow. So, I�m a little frustrated. It serves me right. I hate doing my taxes and I put them off every year until practically the last minute. Almost everyone else I know pays someone to do them for them. I don�t because a) I�m a cheapskate and b) the hardest part is gathering all my documentation together, and I�d have to do that for an accountant anyway. Point final.

Okay, enough of this procrastinating. I�m off to rummaging through shoeboxes again.

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