The Deadline
By scipio
- 261 reads
THE DEADLINE
"Damned IRS," Walt muttered and ran his hand through his thinning
white hair. He had been working on his income taxes for three hours
when he realized he had been using the wrong chart. "Damned IRS," he
repeated, as if this would correct the error. He crumpled the paper and
tossed it at the waste can, only to miss, again.
Walt sighed and looked at the mound of paper he had created on his
desk next to his pipe and coffee. Walt picked up the pipe and sucked in
the taste of cold charred tobacco. It had gone out. Sputtering to
eliminate the tobacco taste he picked up his coffee and drank, only to
discover it was cold.
"Ugh," Walt shuddered as the cold black liquid slid home. He leaned
back in his chair to ease the tension in his muscles.
"I've got to get organized better next year," he said. Walt had said
the same thing for the last twenty years and every April fifteenth
found him sitting in his study trying to beat the midnight deadline for
filing.
Walt searched for the correct form on his desk, but it wasn't among
the myriad of papers piled there. "Where is it? I know I had it," he
mumbled. He got down on his hands and knees to search among the papers
scattered on the floor.
He spotted it under Minerva, his Persian cat. She slept blissfully on
the directions he needed to beat the deadline, which was now only
forty-five minutes away. He tugged gently, but it wouldn't budge. With
an eye on the clock and no time for tact he jerked the chart from under
the sleeping cat.
The force rolled Minerva over waking her. Startled, she leaped onto
the desk sending pipe, papers and coffee crashing to the floor. Minerva
streaked out the door and down the stairs, hissing and yowling.
Walt sat on the floor holding the tax chart and surveying the carnage.
The coffee may have been cold, but it was wet and it was soaking into
every piece of paper it could find. Even his pipe turned on him. There
had been some live embers left in it and they were now busily burning
little black holes into the remaining dry papers.
"Walt," it was June, his wife. "What's going on up there?"
"Just doing the taxes, dear, that's all," he replied.
By now the coffee had come to the rescue of the smoldering papers
causing the embers to hiss in retaliation.
"I don't know why you wait until the last minute every year to do
this. After all, it's not like you don't have the information you need.
You must be the only CPA who can't get his taxes in on time," she said
in exasperation.
Walt listened to the droning of his wife and looked at the disaster
that surrounded him.
"Damned IRS," he muttered.
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