tax day. it marks two things for our family:
the first being the anniversary of the day - eleven years ago now, that i got on a little puddle jumper at the white plains airport in new york bound for the bluegrass of kentucky.
the other thing it marks is the wondrous thing called a tax refund.
in the eleven years that we’ve lived in louisville, we can count a ginormous refund. every year. like birthdays and christmas. its reliable. like clockwork. we count on it. we plan for it.
the other thing we’ve had since moving to louisville (other than 2 more kids), is our own company. well, i have nothing to do with it, its my husbands’ company. but we both paid our dues with all of that never seeing each other, working all hours while i stayed home and changed diapers and going without pay now and then thing. the ginormous tax refund? a nice reward for all that shit.
we always do our taxes ourselves and its’ wildly comforting to see that big fat number up in the corner of the screen indicating the refund we’re getting. and then, the sweet anticipation of logging into our bank account daily since filing to see when the ginormous amount has gone into our account – totally fun.
and so the other night, my husband plugs in some fancy I’m A Partner In The Company number into the tax thingy & just like that, the big fat number disappears and changes into a number that indicates not what we’re getting. but what we owe. on money we never actually got. because for the first time since starting the company, it actually made money. not the real green kind, that goes into the bank account, but the imaginary, “on paper kind”. evidently, uncle sam does not distinguish between the two.
fuck.
and the wine cabinet is empty & the bourbon is gone which brings me to my next issue, which is the fact that in the past few weeks i haven’t even really wanted any wine. haven’t. even. wanted. wine.
what?
which brings me to my next, next issue which is ever since i stopped marathoning and took my body back from the pre-pubescent 12 year old boy body that was holding it hostage i had become, shall we say; regular. like clockwork, for the first time in two years.
all was well with the world when i could finally count on the fact every month that i was indeed a woman. until several weeks ago when i wondered where that monthly reminder was and i took out the calendar and counted 10 weeks and realized oh shit, that’s supremely late. and then i thought oh fuck.
so now we owe a boatload of taxes on money we never had, we’re out of wine and bourbon, and i think i might be knocked up.
this can’t be.
we take precautions to avoid such an unplanned event from occurring. so i do the google. (there’s no google for why we have to pay taxes on money we never really made in the first place- i looked). but i googled the other thing, to find out how often it happens to those of us who take these precautions. 7 out of 1,000. so i start to hope that my same freakish luck with winning raffles wouldn’t apply to something like this.
and i wonder if i can enter a raffle for a tax refund.
there was a day 4 years ago when it wasn’t just a scare; it was true, for real and not just on paper. the little stick said yes. and we had taken precautions and not planned on such an occasion. although i’m pretty sure that year we still got our refund.
my husband came home that night to a big ‘ol glass of bourbon on the kitchen table. and he said what’s that for? and i said i’m pregnant. and he knocked that drink back like he was in the movies or a soap opera or something. and i poured him another one.
then i vaguely recall the story of a friend of a friend, or was it his sister? who emerged from the womb with said pre-caution clutched in her hand. did someone tell me that? or is that one of those urban myths?
shit.
so. back to the taxes. and the going to have a glass of wine that is not even in the house and the fact that i don’t even really want it. and then remembering that when pregnant our bodies will send signals to not eat or drink certain things that aren’t good for us. good god. if i dont want wine, what other explanation can there possibly be?
so i go to bed on tax night freaking out over the money we owe on money we never made. and i wonder if i can still race the rest of the spring series. and i count in my head over imaginary due dates and try to figure out if i could still do ‘cross in the fall. and i wonder if they’d make a chicks-who-are-40-years-old-and-knocked-up category and i think i could totally sweep the podium if they had that category.
and i lie there thinking i am too old for this. i am two weeks away from being the mom of a teenager. i like this new, bike racing, cycling, independent children chapter. i don’t want to flip the book back to the diaper changing, sleepless nights chapter. we had some tiny children for the weekend a few months ago. one tiny enough to remind us what those sleepless nights were once like and i told my husband the next morning he could go get that v-snip any day now. we are officially finished.
and then i wonder where the hell we’ll put the crib and how we’ll manage after paying all that money on money we never had.
i wake up the next day and drag my 40 year old presumably knocked up self to the pharmacy to buy the cheapest test they had, cause we still had to pay all that money for money we never had.
but i can’t just put a pregnancy test in the basket. what if someone sees me? there’s rules. i have to put other things in there. shampoo. a magazine with that crazy octo-mom and the ‘real interview’. a pepsi. and some stick on nails. and i think i should probably go get some bourbon for the soap opera moment we may have to have in the kitchen.
and i go home and pee on the stick and stare at it the whole time and its negative. and i mostly breathe a sigh of relief, even though there’s a weensy, ever so slight nano-second of a twinge of sadness. but i go out to lunch with a friend and we go shopping for fabric so i can make the dress i was planning on making and i’m so glad i don’t have to buy extra fabric for a huge belly.
and then i go home and put my stick on nails on. which i have never done; but find them surprisingly cute & chic - except for the fact that they don’t hold up so well through 5+ loads of hand washed dishes.
and i think, if we got that refund, we could have gotten a new dishwasher.