Karma check

As most of you probably know, [joe walsh] life’s been good to me so far.[/joe walsh] So I guess for all my luckiness, it’s time to pay a few dues. In the grand scheme of things though, I still really can’t complain as my “dues” are really quite minor, however life is kind of comedic when it decides to throw things at you in rapid-fire bursts as more often happens in movies and television.
Tuesday night I decided to go ahead and do out taxes online. I usually take the band’s income on my taxes and everyone else just pays me their share. This, unfortunately makes doing my taxes much more complicated as I have to fill out extra forms for self-employment and blah, blah, blah (which usually one of the other band guys does for me since I agreed to take it all under my social security number on the condition that I didn’t have to do my now complicated taxes).
As luck would have it, there were various circumstances which meant I didn’t have to do that this year, and thus my taxes would once again be easy. In fact, so easy I could do the 1040EZ form! Ahh, how long it has been since I could use the 1040EZ!
Last year we got a nice big refund back, so I eagerly start my online entering to find out what big refund we’ll be getting this year! Unfortunately, as I get near the end, the program tells me that I can’t do 1040EZ since I started contributing to my 401k in December. One measly month of retirement fund and I have to do the regular 1040 which, judging by the lack of letters after its title, is not all that EZ.
Luckily, it really wasn’t that much more painful so I finish it up and wait for my big refund! More money towards the Prius down payment. The big moment comes and I find my refund will be… -$230. I owe $230. Boo. We suspect that this is because Jess learned the hard way what I had already learned the hard way many years ago: if you follow the directions on your tax form when starting a new job, you will have too many “allowances” and end up owing. The directions clearly say “if (blank) then put one” and then has you total all your “1”s to find your total allowances. What they don’t tell you is that you will end up owing money if you actually take that amount. So while I take 0 or 1 allowances usually, Jess took 3 as the directions indicated, and thus it looks as if Restoration Hardware didn’t take out any Federal Income Tax.
I go to bed a bit depressed. The next morning I get up and we do our usual morning thing which ends with us getting in the truck and going to work. Usually. When the truck starts. Which it is not doing this particular morning. The truck turns over, but won’t start much like it was doing when I had to have my fuel pump replaced just a little over a year ago. My immediate thought is “Well, I guess we’re not going in to work today.” Luckily my wife has a clearer head and more wisely calls or friend who lives nearby to beg for a ride.
Once at work I set about the task of finding a mobile mechanic who will go to my truck and fix it. I find that this plan is scuttled since I have the key with me at work and the truck is at the apartment. I decide that I’m going to try and rent a car, go home at lunch and drop my key off. I call the car rental place right by our house but they can’t pick me up from work because I’m out of their area. I call the one by work and all they have available are SUV’s which cost more to rent than smaller cars. I give up and accept the fact that I’m just not going to get anything done until the next day.
Just for comedic effect, when I went to make my lunch, I turned the little cap on the mustard and it spat a shower of tiny blobs onto my bitchin shirt.
This morning I rented a nice car, and the mechanic is going to try and get to it today depending on his schedule. As I said, in the grand scheme of things I really can’t complain as life is good. I have a kick ass job (I can only think of 2 people that I actually know who give me job envy: Will, the Director of Development for a production company, and my uncle Brown who is a Director of Photography, although with him it’s more tangential since that’s not exactly what I aspire to do). I spent yesterday playing with our new toys: a steering wheel and pedals to control my armored/armed battle vehicle in the game I test. We have a Prius on order. Even though we owe taxes, it’s not much and we’re making decent money with which to pay them.
Even with such a great life, I’m often nagged by a since of something just under the surface though. A sense of dissatisfaction of some sort. A sense of unfulfilled dreams and ambitions. Nothing major, just slight stresses which are normal with life. Stressed about time, health, money, decisions, my extreme laziness and unproductiveness. While it all can be annoying, I also find some of it good in that I think it’s important to have dreams, ambitions, and further goals. I think it would be much more scary if I was just completely content with my current lot in life and resigned myself to the thought that this is the final stage of my journey and that I have crossed the big finish line and will coast out the rest of my (hopefully) many remaining years.
Perhaps a little dissatisfaction is a healthy thing. As life get better, it’s necessary to adjust your sights and recalibrate. Of course I’m sure it’s much easier to do as you move up in life as opposed to readjusting to a move for the worse.