Cheers

Well it's over. I dropped off the taxes at the post office this evening.

I'd like to share the numbers with you but first I'm going to convert it into my beverage of choice at an unspecified exchange rate so the beer drinkers don't get too jealous and the martini crowd don't feel too uppity.

Last year my wife and I between us earned about 15,586 drinks. But because I was self-employed I had to buy 4,581 drinks for other people just to keep the business going. That left us about 11,005 drinks. Oh, and I was unemployed for six weeks during which time the State bought me 324 drinks. Figure 11,330 drinks total.

Out of that Jackson cadged 342 drinks, mostly for the school teachers. Thirsty lot. Ted the K, a hard-drinking ex-labor lawyer, hit me up for 611 drinks. My indigent Uncle Sam (an incurable alcoholic) went through 1,915 drinks. 1,359 of those he bought for the old folks. Nice of him. Did you get one, Dad? (Mom doesn't drink.) With the 556 he had left he bought a round for the House, one for the Senate, and a couple of six packs for the boys in Iraq.

As far as I'm concerned, they're the ones who really deserve it.