You know if you had purchased your printer from a 'Value Added Reseller', such as my self, then you would have personal service for returns, and then perhaps I could have over contributed to my retirment plan.

Anyway I hate taxes and it was nice to be able to laugh at another loyal patrioit doing the inevidable.

Hope all is well with the family, we are all healthy, happy and cash strapped until May 15. Thanks to good 'ol Uncle Sam.

Bwahahahaha. I suppose I shouldn't laugh at the crazy person who bought something-that-isnt-an-HP.

My husband gives me grief about brand-preference, assuring me that many non-HP brands produce lovely products. I assure him that its in his best interest to get me a product that is related to HP Customer Service. Those people are amazing!

That "no income tax, 23-percent sales tax" plan is starting to look good. We somehow get away with only doing a couple forms, and TurboTax sure does a nice job walking us through it.

As for HP, they seem to do alright. My last experience with them involved two calls that I am positive were forwarded to India (a common practice now, as labor is much cheaper there), which wouldn't be so bad if the first person I spoke with knew passable English. The second person, a female who was obviously higher up on the technical food-chain, was very good. I still have a product that doesn't work completely (I was left with the "well, we don't know what's wrong, so we'll leave the ticket open and let you know if we think of something" -- sure you will).

Thanks for another light-hearted start to my long day, Tony. :)

Whew, sounds like a taxing experience. Good thing you didn't lose your faith.

You may want to avoid hanging wallpaper together. That has been known to put marriages to the test.

I never say such things.

Wait, that's not completely true. I do occasionally offer a well timed "sh**". Oh yeah, and then there is the infrequent "a**hole" expletive toward the author, when said expletive seems appropriately true and I am hoppin' mad.

So I'm not perfect.

But my prideful nature insists that the number of my imperfections be limited to the truthful ones. I take that back, let's don't tell those either.

Go to www.fairtax.org and sign the petition.

You can read my blog on the Fair Tax at:
http://saintknowitall.blogspot.com/2005/04/fair-tax-fairtax-act-consumption-tax.html

How'd somebody record us, then send you the DVD?

I always wear black on the 15th of April. And the printer mishap. That's part of the drill.

Memo

To: Wife

From: SitG Management

Re: Recent complaint of alleged inaccuracies in the story titled "Love and Taxes"

Thank you for your recent note above. Here at Sand in the Gears, unlike, say the Epson corporation, we take all customer complaints seriously. Unfortunately, your complaint does not follow our established protocols, and so I have to ask you to resubmit accordingly.

Specifically, all complaints must be submitted to the writer in person, while wearing either a cheerleader outfit or nothing but cowgirl boots, and while carrying a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Thank you for your cooperation, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

The Management

Hah, You're a hoot.

I don't own any cowboy boots, or cowgirl, is there a difference? In the boots I mean.

Thanks for the "i".

I did our taxes alone for a number of years, primarily because my husband's eyes tend to glaze over when he tries to "help" me. I was not fit for human company between mid-March and "T" day and as a matter of self-preservation, my family learned to find lots and lots of errands to run from about April 12 until our tax forms hit the mailbox. A couple of years ago, I broke down and turned it all over to a CPA acquaintance -- the greatly reduced stress levels seemed well worth the few hundred dollars it cost to have him do it.

Now, however, I wonder if asking Nick to wear a cheerleader outfit and feed me chocolate chip cookies would have been a more effective -- and less expensive -- stress reducer. Hmmm.....