I just did our taxes over this past weekend. I hate doing taxes. The only thing that has made doing our taxes each year worth the headache is that we’ve always broke even or gotten a little refund back. It’s like I actually got rewarded for the effort. (Yeah, I know, I’m just being rewarded my own money.)

This year, though, we actually owe taxes. That makes the effort of doing the taxes a total disappointment. It’s adding insult to injury. Rubbing salt in the wound.

When I told Cowgrit that we owe taxes this year, she said, “We owe? Why?”

Then when I showed her the amount we owe, she nearly shouted, “What!? Why!?”

It had to do with getting a good severance package for being laid off, and then getting another job a week later. Yeah, the corporate world giveth, and the government taketh away. But hey, thinking about the alternative, it’s better to owe some extra taxes than to be in the opposite position: unemployed.

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For as far back as I can remember, my dad has had a poster titled, “Poverty Sucks.” It shows a wealthy man (1979) in riding pants, holding a glass of champagne, leaning against a Rolls Royce, in front of the federal Welfare office (you can’t see the building name engraved in the wall behind the car in the small picture here).

He never hung the poster in any way — it stayed rolled up and in a closet forever. We’d pull it out every once in a while and laugh at it for a couple minutes and then put it back up.

We were nowhere near being wealthy; we were small-town middle class. We wore blue jeans for play instead of riding pants, we drank Coke and Mountain Dew instead of champagne, and we drove Pontiacs and Toyotas instead of Rolls Royces. But we could relate to the rich man’s sentiment on poverty: it would, indeed, suck.

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Coincidentally with my doing our taxes this weekend, my dad just gifted me that old poster. I plan to frame it and hang it in my office.

So here’s to a fiscal year where we ended up having to pay more taxes instead of having to draw government funds for survival. (But this is not to suggest I look forward to owing taxes next year.)

Bullgrit

I heard a radio morning talk show ragging on minivans, insinuating they are uncool. I’ve occasionally heard other people (family, friends, strangers) rag on minivans, and pick on me for driving one — it’s Cowgrit’s vehicle, I only drive it sometimes. Interestingly, I have rarely heard anyone who actually owns a minivan complain about them (as a type of vehicle). Minivans are great. Especially for what they are designed for — families, with two or more children.

Our family had a sedan and a station wagon for the first few years of Calfgrit8’s life, and we did just fine. Loading in and our of either vehicle was not particularly problematic. But we bought a minivan the week before Calfgrit4 was born, and we discovered how much easier travel could be.

We could get ourselves and both children in and out of the vehicle so much easier — no bending over with 10-15 pounds of child and carrier. No more squeezing in and over the kids to buckle belts. Heck, just the automatic sliding doors (both sides!) made getting in and out so much easier.

My brother mentioned, “How lazy or weak must you be to need automatic doors?” Well, he’s never tried to handle an infant carrier, groceries, car keys, and a car door all at the same time. We have a friend who has a minivan with manual sliding doors, and she’s commented, “They’re a pain in the ass.”

I even like driving the minivan. It’s more comfortable than my sedan, and has better view of the road. And oh my God, I can’t imagine how our drive to Florida would have gone if we three adults and two kids had to ride in a station wagon. The minivan is like a bus.

When one of my (childless) friends rode in our minivan one time, he commented, “This is nice. I’d like to have this kind of van. But without kids, people would think I’m a molester out cruising for victims.”

My previous boss said she made her husband drive their minivan, because, “I’m too cool to be seen in a minivan.”

Oh well, I love our minivan. And if you need to rag on it, then you can kiss my big ol’ leg-room, head-room, comfortable-seat, back-seat-folding-down, plenty-of-power, family-hauling butt.

Bullgrit