Saturday, March 12, 2005
Madness du Jour
So one of the guys was talking about "March Madness" -- the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Now, personally, I think that the real "madness" in basketball is how they can wear those long, baggy shorts on the court -- Carson!! Time for the Queer Eye makeover!
The real madness is in the American war zone -- where our brave men and women face death every day. No, I'm not talking about Iraq -- I'm talking about any Dunkin Donuts parking lot at about 8 in the morning. You take your life in your hands -- all those people in their pick-ups, vans, and SUV's -- pulling out and parking with a cup of java in one hand and a cellphone in the other. Hell, all the cops are inside eating doughnuts -- you'd think they could come out and direct traffic, or something.
Then there's the impending madness of April -- taxes! Now, in my blogger profile, I mentioned that I entered a contest for a date with Annette Funicello when I was a little kid. Now that was cute -- kind of a fantasy, of course -- but cute. I don't have fantasies anymore, though, I'm a rational adult now. (That's not quite true -- I do still have fantasies, but this is a family blog. Oh, all right. They generally involve Catherine Zeta-Jones, a 30-gallon vat of molten Silly Putty, and a Slinkie toy. Use your imagination.)
Where was I? Oh yes, taxes! Part of the problem is that the tax code is complex, while the people are simple. You've got a nation full of people who could never program their VCR's, who told Jay Leno on Jaywalking that Oklahoma City was the capital of the Grand Canyon, and think that fractions are higher math and word problems the invention of Satan. And they're supposed to be able to figure out the Tax Code. Right. Now there's a fantasy. Zeta-Jones, move over!
I've got news for you. There is no Tax Code -- it was abolished in 1987. Your tax preparer has never even seen the real Tax Code -- they study a Monarch Notes version in tax schools. (The IRS agents use the Cliff Notes version -- hence the misunderstandings and audits.)
Once there was a Tax Code -- it was very important. Realizing that no one ever read it, least of all the Japanese, the OSS used it during World War II to transmit secret messages in Navajo. The IRS subsequently proved that Americans didn't read the Tax Code either -- a Professor Hima Schumck from Columbia translated the entire 1976 Tax Code into Elizabethan English and sent the resulting version to the public libraries and post offices for distribution to the public. Nobody noticed.
In the basement of the IRS building in Washington, there is currently a roomful of monkeys with the nation's only remaining stash of typewriters. They finished typing Shakespeare several decades ago, but replicating the Tax Code is totally beyond even them.
So you see how it is -- Mulder was right -- The Truth is indeed out there. The only problem is that it was buried somewhere in the Tax Code.
The real madness is in the American war zone -- where our brave men and women face death every day. No, I'm not talking about Iraq -- I'm talking about any Dunkin Donuts parking lot at about 8 in the morning. You take your life in your hands -- all those people in their pick-ups, vans, and SUV's -- pulling out and parking with a cup of java in one hand and a cellphone in the other. Hell, all the cops are inside eating doughnuts -- you'd think they could come out and direct traffic, or something.
Then there's the impending madness of April -- taxes! Now, in my blogger profile, I mentioned that I entered a contest for a date with Annette Funicello when I was a little kid. Now that was cute -- kind of a fantasy, of course -- but cute. I don't have fantasies anymore, though, I'm a rational adult now. (That's not quite true -- I do still have fantasies, but this is a family blog. Oh, all right. They generally involve Catherine Zeta-Jones, a 30-gallon vat of molten Silly Putty, and a Slinkie toy. Use your imagination.)
Where was I? Oh yes, taxes! Part of the problem is that the tax code is complex, while the people are simple. You've got a nation full of people who could never program their VCR's, who told Jay Leno on Jaywalking that Oklahoma City was the capital of the Grand Canyon, and think that fractions are higher math and word problems the invention of Satan. And they're supposed to be able to figure out the Tax Code. Right. Now there's a fantasy. Zeta-Jones, move over!
I've got news for you. There is no Tax Code -- it was abolished in 1987. Your tax preparer has never even seen the real Tax Code -- they study a Monarch Notes version in tax schools. (The IRS agents use the Cliff Notes version -- hence the misunderstandings and audits.)
Once there was a Tax Code -- it was very important. Realizing that no one ever read it, least of all the Japanese, the OSS used it during World War II to transmit secret messages in Navajo. The IRS subsequently proved that Americans didn't read the Tax Code either -- a Professor Hima Schumck from Columbia translated the entire 1976 Tax Code into Elizabethan English and sent the resulting version to the public libraries and post offices for distribution to the public. Nobody noticed.
In the basement of the IRS building in Washington, there is currently a roomful of monkeys with the nation's only remaining stash of typewriters. They finished typing Shakespeare several decades ago, but replicating the Tax Code is totally beyond even them.
So you see how it is -- Mulder was right -- The Truth is indeed out there. The only problem is that it was buried somewhere in the Tax Code.
# posted by Bill @ 1:45 PM 
