the one where i tell you how much i hate the government

i should have seen it coming. the morning started out a little too fabulous to be true... woke up early, took an extra long shower, strolled to the bus stop and got a seat on the 1 bx. "yep," i thought as i took a break from us weekly to look at the beautiful blue sky, "things are definitely looking up: the sun is shining, i'm going on vacation in 24 days, and i got a tax refund this year. 2006? best year ever." sigh. yay life.

you see last year i owed millions of dollars in taxes. like - for reals. this, in addition to the hundreds of thousands that already came out of my paycheck. so how happy was i when not only did i file a month early but was getting a refund! almost 300 dollars! yay tax year 05!

so i check my account this morning and thats when i see it --

US TREASURY TAX REFUND: $10.42

umm. wait. what?!? so, not only did i manage to screw up (big surprise - arithmetic has never been my strong suit - oh, and plus my life blows) but someone caught it? i'm saving myself additional anguish by not calling the IRS on tax day so i guess i'll just wait for the letter explaining my mistakes... "in addition to the careless errors on your tax return, it is our duty to inform you that any medical expenses you incur during the course of your stay in a lonely hospital bed in a 3rd world country after you develop a terminal illness are not deductible..." yay misery!

whats really got me fired up is that if it was a mistake in my favor - they wouldn't have caught it. we send our forms for a refund to a cleverly staffed facility with lots of uber aggressive number crunchers and big expensive machines trained to find errors... and our forms with payment to what? a warehouse staffed with some highschool dropout feeding forms through a scantron? yay america!

and then there's the part about where the tax dollars are spent. don't get me started. sigh. maybe i'll join the libertarian party. care to join me?