The Pun Also Rises(as seen in the North Adams Transcript)
"Death And Taxes"People often say that there are only two sure things in life: Death and Taxes. Naturally, this is nonsense. Taxes aren't really a sure thing, as everyone from Al Capone to Willie Nelson can attest. And Death, while a sure thing, isn't really in life, it's more at the end of life. It's like saying your front door is in your house, when it's more of a portal out of your house. Regardless, insofar as Death and Taxes go, there's no better time for both of them than April 15th. This fated date is the deadline for filing your tax return, and is coming up in one week. It's a very taxing process, in spite of the EZ on some of the forms. It's so complicated, in fact, that Albert Einstein once said, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." (He also said, "The second-hardest thing in the world to understand is the comb," but this is less frequently quoted.) If the world's smartest man didn't even understand income tax, what chance do we have? Well, roughly none. That's why most people hire someone else to understand it for them. We get the wonderful combination of nobility and formic acid: A Count Ant. Like their namesake, these fellows dress mostly in black and spend most of their day in a network of tunnels, working hard to acquire lots of money by swarming over the peasant classes. A trained A Count Ant will help explain why the government needs to take most of your money and spend it on things you don't want. A good one can also tell you all the laws about losing your money, and how you can break them. A very good one will do this without getting caught. The other option is to do your own taxes, generally with the help of a computer program. In fact, I recently co-produced a rap video about taxes for a contest, currently linked on my website. If you wanted to go watch it today or tomorrow, and vote for it in the contest, your time would almost qualify for a charitable deduction. But not quite. Regardless, the only thing people fear more than taxes is death. And one of the more famous death-filled disasters occurred on an April 15th long ago: The ill-fated voyage of the Titanic. As you probably know, in the year 1912, the world's first indestructible cruise vessel was sailing across the oceans. The Titanic was full of smart, good-looking passengers, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio. Then, disaster struck. Disaster, of course, was the name of the iceberg that the Titanic ran into. The skipper looked at the captain and said, "I've got a sinking feeling about this." Hours later, early in the morning (after a lot of extremely boring and predictable exposition), the ship broke into two pieces and sank. The date? April 15th. Now, I won't argue that Tax Day was directly responsible for the Titanic, or that the Titanic is directly responsible for Tax Day. (Even if they are both responsible for the Kennedy assassination.) But it does seem a bit more than coincidence. A boatload of money is taken from us on April 15th, and it's a bit of a kick in the aft. Frankly, it's enough to make someone depressed. That's probably why my favorite pessimists' society, the Benevolent and Loyal Order Of Pessimists (or BLOOP, for short) used to have their annual meetings on April 15th. After all, what better proof could exist that optimism is ridiculous than death and taxes? People who expect everything in life to go well are usually forgetting something. Poland? No, they are forgetting about the inevitable. That's why I don't believe their platitudes. "Things will get better!" is not always true. "If you fall, you can get back up again." Depends on what height you fell from. "There's always tomorrow." Until there isn't. No, a bright future is never a sure thing. There is only one sure thing in life -- and that is April 15th. __________________________ All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown. If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint it, please contact me first. |