In my first year of home-owning, there has been a cavalcade (per the OED, "A ride, a march or raid on horseback. Obs." and believe you me I mean the "raid" sense) of things that are new, or shocking, or complicated, or even horrifying to me, almost on a daily basis: gutters need to be cleaned but I am anxious about ladders, kitchen floors need to be laid but I can't figure out how to deal with moving the fridge, how to plant flowers so that they will actually survive (and maybe even bloom?). And now, thirty-five days after taxes were due, I finally locate a piece of very important paperwork that entitles me to several hundred dollars back on my taxes becuase of the mortgage program I'm in. All during February and March I wondered where this document was, why the bank hadn't sent me any forms. So I Turbo Taxed my way to greatness and got my e-refund and all was well, except that I knew I hadn't done everything right, but I didn't know how to fix it.
Of course, the bank did send me the forms, but they sent them to me in November, which is so far ahead of time that it's pointless. Everyone knows you can't do your taxes in November. That just leaves extra months for people to lose things. Which, despite a chuckling, bold-fonted warning in the letter attached to my form, I promptly did. We'll see if the federal government will let me mend the error of my ways. If so, the appletinis are on me.
