10. “If all those Congressman can’t figure out their finances, how do you expect me to?”
9. “I have a deathly fear of 1040 paper cuts.”
8. “Trying to use the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gains Tax Worksheet gave me a severe brain cramp.”
[Read more →]
10. “Look, if you file late, it’s no skin off my nose.”
9. “I’m pretty sure you just multiply your income by 1040.”
8. “You needed another deduction, so I billed you again.”
[Read more →]
I like to imagine that this guy’s name is Friday. He’s been dealing with an unusual name his whole life, and once a year his friends tease him when all the dreaded Black Friday stories come on the news. He never shops on Black Friday — his friends would make too many jokes. He hates being teased. He’s afraid of being embarrassed. So he stays home every year while everyone else gets great deals. Year after year Friday sits on the couch and watches TV while his friends shop and save money on Black Friday. But last year his TV breaks right before Thanksgiving. His wife makes him come with her to buy a new TV on Black Friday. She tells him to ignore his teasing friends and come buy a new TV already. So Friday goes with his wife to the store on Black Friday and gets a great deal on a new TV, and when he’s walking out of the store, he’s pleased that he overcame his fear of being embarrassed and is smiling wide because he just bought a big TV. Just then a photographer snaps this shot, and today the picture is on the front page of CNN.com. Friday’s phone starts beeping with texts from his friends…
The gym where I work opens early enough that I’m usually the only person there when the Dunkin Donuts opens. But to my surprise, I wasn’t first today. There was a bearded man in his early forties and a grizzly bear in a blue polo in line in front of me and the following scene took place:
(I enter the store wiping sleep-boogies out of my eye and get in line behind the grizzly bear. He nods to me.)
BEAR: Hey, how ya doin’?
ME: Not too bad, yourself?
BEAR: Can’t complain.
ME: Chilly out there again, eh?
BEAR: (casually shrugs) Eh, ‘supposed to hit fifty a little later this week.
ME: Wish that was today. Just gotta bundle up I guess.
BEAR: Not me. I’m a grizzly bear.
ME: I see that.
(Originally posted at TheDefeatists.typepad.com)
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
John Milton, “On His Blindness”
It’s been an odd summer at Defeatist Central. In the last few years, we’d have gone crazy with lots of stuff about how horrible the politicians, economy and so on have become. However, not unlike a lot of other bloggers, we’ve become strangely quiet. Is it because, as in the case of Mr. Fun, we are frustrated because once you go Pek you can’t go back and no Pony has arrived? Perhaps because of the arrival of Defeatist Babies while we mourn the departure of beloved Defeatist Pets? Is it perhaps because of more mundane concerns? Or, maybe greater concerns? Who knows what ennui and disinterest lurk in the hearts of men? Well, besides Yeats, of course….but I quote him often enough.
For me, it’s been an odd time. Mrs. AXE came home one day and announced that she wanted to retire from Federal Service because she was old and because she was working for complete assholes. Well, that was fine with me; I did some math and said, OK we’ll be fine. She then went through some totally unnecessary hassles over insurance coverage for some tests, submitted her paperwork, got the tests in early March and retired on the 31st. That afternoon, we got the diagnosis – colon cancer with fairly large polyps that probably had breeched the walls of the colon. On April 20, they did the surgery. The surgeon said it went very well; on the following Tuesday, I got a call at 10PM saying they were taking her to emergency surgery because of complications; when I got there, she greeted me by crying “Goodbye…” Now, by nature I am not a nurturing type; my response was fairly unemotional and probably helped in this case – “Really? I don’t think so unless you know something I don’t.” The surgery went well – there had been an obstruction and the surgeon took out three feet of small intestine that was gangrenous. To allow everything to heal, he performed a temporary Ileostomy, that is, a procedure to route the small intestine to a sack outside the body. When she was healed, they would reattach the plumbing. In the meantime, she’d start with an oncologist and see if Chemo was the next step.
10. Instead of springing for expensive airline tickets, just pack your bags and then ask a friend to lose them for you
9. Can’t afford a trip around the world? Try the International House of Pancakes!
8. Find a movie theater showing 3-D travelogues
7. Convince your kids it’s originally pronounced ‘spraycation’ – then get out the garden hose for a week of fun!
6. No need to spring for a pricey ski lodge! Just turn the thermostat to sixty, have a loved one hit you in the knee with a hammer, then drink some cocoa!
5. Eat baked beans before getting into the bathtub and – voila! – you’ve got your own Jacuzzi!
4. Convince your kids that basic training is kind of like summer camp
3. Find a hotel where kids stay free, then dress everybody like 10-year-olds
2. Why not try a Mitt-cation? Have someone strap you to the roof of their car
1. Hang out with the Tanning Mom and you’ll always feel like you’re at the beach!
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
This is just another example of how the corporate fat cats are killing this country.
A few years ago, during the 2008 financial crises there was a well-known multi-national corporate giant on the verge of collapse. The long time CEO at the time, worked with management, government officials, and investors to salvage the company. And though there were several extenuating circumstances that lead to the company’s demise, the CEO graciously took the brunt of the criticism and was terminated by the board of directors. [Read more →]
10. Man o’ Peace
9. It’s A Grand Old Nag
8. No Way José
7. Artificial Hip
6. Save-Your-Money
5. Mucilage
4. Stumblebum
3. Tripod
2. Chris Christie
1. Wrong Way Corrigan
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. “Somebody just now told me that taxes are due every year.”
9. “I was working around the clock trying to revive the Herman Cain campaign.”
8. “I’m deathly afraid of 1040 paper cuts.”
7. “I miss prison.”
6. “Fill out a tax form?! I can’t even program my VCR!”
5. “After I claim all the voices in my head as deductions, it turns out they owe me money!”
4. “I was hoping I could barter for what I owe with sexual favors.”
3. “All my calculations were lost when somebody turned over my Etch A Sketch.”
2. “Being in the top one percent, I thought I was exempt.”
1. “I’m still waiting for this Nigerian prince to e-mail me some money.”
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
We were in an ice cream parlor the other day, and my son was looking at some old-time paintings on the wall. One was a decades-old picture of a sundae with a price tag: 10 cents. Despite my efforts, he couldn’t comprehend it — which may not be difficult to imagine since my grasp of macroeconomic issues is wanting . I had similar success explaining to him that gas, the stuff that makes our car go, was once a quarter.
10. His last client was Gary Busey
9. It takes him 45 minutes to figure out his tip at the Hair Cuttery
8. He claims bajillion is a real number
7. He promises to visit you in prison
6. When you get a closer look at his ‘calculator’ you realize he’s just playing Angry Birds
5. He says he spend a lot of time consulting with his own tax adviser: Johnnie Walker
4. When you point out a math error, he says, “Ahhh, five of one, half a dozen of the other.”
3. He claims your refund is actually supposed to go to him
2. He does his calculating in the nude, so he can count to 21
1. Before every number on your tax form, he puts one of those ‘more or less’ squiggles
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
March Madness concludes, an event handled something like an outbreak of typhus in workplaces across the country; treated with quarantine and let to run its course. Recent racial tensions notwithstanding, it culminated in a charmingly integrated riot. But if it weren’t the parade of paid amateurs in their skivvies, it would be some other diversion; perhaps the buttons on our shirts or better, the buttons on Kim K’s shirt. Are the flags still at half-staff? Must be for Whitney, national treasure that she was. It couldn’t be that there are caskets burdened with the bits of American soldiers pouring into New Jersey as they have never been lowered for that yet. There is a drought across the nation. It is a drought not of water, though that, too. What we thirst for, seek and find absent in every dusty bucket on every rusted hook is seriousness for the serious matters; sobriety in the face of sobering events. We desperadoes are a small and vilified minority. Instead of frank discourse we meet the mouthpieces of vested interests or free-lance mouthpieces without portfolio who, on speculation, ape the paid press agents. For any who question the state of affairs, whether it is the public debt or private vice there is one ready rejoinder with all the insight and subtlety of a vuvuzela; lol. [Read more →]
We might think that people never have to pay for anything, with all the things we hear are paying for themselves. Most times, when someone says, “It pays for itself,” the proper response is, “No, it doesn’t.”
I know someone who buys annual memberships at several aquariums and zoos because doing so only costs a little more than the one-day pass. He once told me that if you go to the Baltimore Aquarium just twice in a year, the yearly pass “pays for itself,” which is why he has bought the yearly pass. Baltimore is a four-hour drive from where he lives, but no matter. He is determined to have his pass pay for itself, so he loads the kids into the car and takes a second trip to Baltimore within the year. Not to do so is to have paid for a yearly membership when only a one-day pass was needed. Driving to Baltimore costs money for gas and tolls, but if you add it all up, as I’m sure he has, it still costs less than paying for two separate day passes to the aquarium. This math convinces him that the yearly pass pays for itself. If he goes to the aquarium a third time in the year, it will pay for itself even more. If he goes ten times, the yearly pass pays for itself so much it’s practically free. [Read more →]
