Arrias led off the production effort on this early Monday morning. Well, it was early, and had an informed discussion of the prospect of the use of atomic weapons. That went along with proofing the manuscript the Chairman has had in various ruck-sacks for about forty years. It was an old story about a sailor who had been involved with exploding atomic bombs near a variety of warships collected on a once tranquil and lovely tropical lagoon. You are going to love the pictures of a bunch of sailors in dungarees attempting to swab radioactive debris off the decks of the ships still floating.

It is a story so strange that it gets even stranger today under gray chilly rain that is keeping us inside the bunkhouse huddled by the fire. It now seems to fit again in our much more advanced age. We are allowed to talk about old events in the morning, and Amanda, our watch-Attorney was alert to ensure that overseas events did not reflect on our wise leadership here at home. That lurched over into one of those things that is current, but still permissible, so long as we don’t get into the myriad of issues for which it is spent. Taxes. Mondays are a tough day to get packed up into something socially acceptable. There are plenty of topics to talk about, but on advice of counsel, we are told not to stand near the thermostat when discussing them.

It is a little odd, but apparently the device that controls our warmth has other functions. It may actually be connected to other electronic devices which are linked to some sort of national network intended to protect us from ourselves.

To imagine that such a thing has occurred in these beloved states without discussion, much less due process or warrant, is sort of amazing. But everything is these days. That it is happening in a nation specifically founded to prohibit that sort of government intrusion is sort of amazing, but we are not supposed to talk about it since we don’t know if the thermostat is in this alone, or has recruited a network of electronic co-conspirators.

Yeah, we know. It is too weird to be believed, but that is a Monday in America. And there is something more: Tax Day! That provoked some discussion, whether it was permitted or not. We are mostly old, and recall the middle of the merry month of April as being the one we had to remember.

It was a complex business. We had to find the slip that came in the mail from the place where we worked. Then the complex act to “open the envelope.” We had (mostly) succeeded in achieving the ability to ‘read’ what was printed on that one sheet of paper and successfully transfer that number to another sheet of paper to see how much the Government had taken in excess of what we actually owed. Then, sign and fold that paper and slide it into another envelope with an address written on the front, find one of those little sticky things with a return address, realize we had used up the last of the stamps paying other bills, get a replacement booklet of them at the Post Office, and slip the completed return in the mail.

Things are a bit different now. Most of us are retired, and only Amanda had what is known as a W2 reporting her income. The rest of us now no longer have that luxury, since there are nice notes from the Social Security people, the Defense Finance Service, curt ones from the financial institutions with which we have dealt over the course of dozens of moves between jobs and homes, reports from the retirement funds to which we inadequately contributed, and a variety of other mysterious entities. Many of us had “1099” forms reporting things for which we used to pay cash money, or should have filled out for somebody else. We generally consider them to be “1099MISC,” in nature, though we are not sure the word “miscellaneous” really covers their full extent. We talked about the various on-line means of filling out the single tax form that contains references to all that other stuff. Some of our forward leaning types have been doing it for years.

Loma was an early adopter, and has been using BurboTax for nearly twenty years. He had assumed that with retirement things would get simpler for the annual filing ritual, and that his return would provide a small direct-deposit allotment to use at Belmont Farms to celebrate completion of another year on the planet. This Monday Tax Day, he waved his tablet device swiftly enough to preclude our ability to actually see the discrete numbers. His rapid gesturing caused the display to flash in constant change.

“I got 55 pages of forms and attachments on this bad boy. Anyone able to beat that without an actual job?”

Splash chortled. “I just got a K-1 form from an energy partnership my parents had when they were alive. I think they told me there was a total of $7 in activity last year. I suppose I should just close it, but I had no idea retirement was so busy, or that even though they are deceased, my folks are still generating activity.”

Amanda smiled. “Strictly speaking, it only matters if someone is obligated by law to report it.”

“Is it a law or an instruction? Suppose we don’t know who they are? Does it matter only if we actually look at it?”

“Old people should have things simpler. Like, a question that says: “Do you have anything left after working all those years? If the answer is ‘No,” we shouldn’t have to report more than that.”

“That is why we need to hire more IRS investigators to examine senior citizens.”

We all looked over at the thermostat, determined to provide oral and visual evidence of full compliance, regardless of the status of our K-1 forms.

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