I Don't Like Mondays

Tax Day AND Monday.  Did you get your tax returns in the mail?  We had to pay federal taxes this year.  I'm not sure why we do it, but I think we elect to pay extra to file our taxes electronically every year.  That seems like a good idea when we're getting money back, but if we have to mail in our tax payment anyway, what's the point of filing electronically?  But who am I to question it?  Hubby's the one who takes care of meeting with the tax people and providing them whatever they need, so although I might wonder about the arrangements, I just leave it all up to him.  I'm sure he must have a reason.

Here's the thing that bothers me though--and it's nothing Hubby has any control over.  Not only does the government want my money, but they seem to want to make it easy for other people to get my money too.  If you've had to pay taxes, perhaps you know the government requires us to put our Social Security number on our check and then mail it to a post office box where all the other payments go.  If you were the kind of person who makes a living stealing other people's identities, how easy would it be for you to intercept tax payments and obtain all kinds of bank information and Social Security numbers?  I always kind of worry about that.

And as if tax day wasn't bad enough all by itself, the bombing at the Boston Marathon made it ten times worse, didn't it?  For some reason, I didn't immediately think "terrorist attack" when I heard the news.  I figured it was just some nut job with a bomb in a backpack who wanted attention.  Maybe someone else who was pissed off about having to pay taxes.  At this point, nothing has been made public about who or what may be behind the bombing, but I suspect it's more likely to be a terrorist attack now that I've seen some of the video.  At least we can be grateful more lives weren't lost, although there were a lot of injuries.

The good news?  By the time you read this, Monday will be over, tax day will be done for another year, and hopefully there won't be any more bombings in the US for a long time.