NOT OC. Torquemada is alive and well, and he works for the IRS!

Color-coordination!  About 1986 or 87.  The cat is Butch.  He later ran off with our cat Mitzi.

I'm glad Linda doesn't have to watch me in action today.  I am doing our income tax, and working myself into my usual towering rage.  The cats are cowering under the couch.  Birds have ceased to come to my bird-feeder.  I think even the house plants are nervous.  Linda would watch me get frustrated and then say, in her mild way, "Next year, why don't you take it to a pro?"  My kids would tell me to use Turbo Tax.  But, nuts, I'm stubborn.  I went to college forever; I should be able to fill out a simple government form.  I tell myself that every year.

The problem is, of course, that the forms are not simple, because the tax code is a total mess.  In an effort to solve all sorts of real or imaginary social problems the tax code has been tweeked this way and that, until the original form and purpose are hard to spot.  A couple of examples, and then I must head back to Schedule A: Why can I deduct my health insurance premiums, but not my Medicare Tax?  The deduction for real estate taxes is meant to contribute to home ownership; how, then, does it make sense for me to be able to deduct for my Borrego Springs vacation home?  Sometimes I think the IRS has subcontracted their work out to the Inquisition, and the overall goal is to extract the most possible effort from the tax-paying sinner, with the greatest possible annoyance.

And at the bottom of every IRS form there is a Paperwork Reduction Notice!