April 15

I believe in paying taxes. I do. I vote for the local ones every time they come up -- more library taxes, I say! More road taxes! More money for women's shelters and medical care for poor kids and yes, damn it, let's take a penny from my paycheck to feed the poor, because, you know what, that is what society is for.

I'm all onto that. It's all good.

It's just that mr. delagar has all these part-time gigs that don't withhold taxes out of his paychecks --aargh!-- and of course, what with the way gas prices and food prices and utilities have been running, not to mention the rest of our lives, we haven't had much luck saving anything up. What little we did have just got sent to the feds and the state.

So it's a gloomy morning at the delagar household.

Could be worse, of course. We could be living in Iraq, for instance, where Mr. Bush is sending all our tax money.