2004-03-05

My apologies for the dead air. I�ve been suffering through a series of minor indignities, not least of which is the fact that I�ve been slaving like a dog here at work: all of a sudden I find myself doing things like �chairing meetings,� which is just ridiculous. I keep having to remind myself to pay attention, and when people look at me expectantly, it takes me a second to realize �Oh! They want me to talk! Fuck.�

Indignity number two: I am broke. As I�ve mentioned, someone around here fucked up my pay, so I�m currently being paid at a lower rate than I�m supposed to be getting. I was assured the situation would be rectified posthaste, but two pay periods have come and gone with noticeable chunks missing from my cheques. I failed to budget for this shortfall, since I was lulled into complacency by the chanted refrain of our pay clerk: �You should be getting a supplementary cheque any day now!� Foolishly, I didn�t immediately realize that the pay department moves about as swiftly as an unmotivated glacier. I�m clinging to a fading spar of hope that I may see the rest of my pay before my hips fracture and I can�t make it to the bank.

Which leads me to indignity number three: I decided to file my taxes early, counting on my return to supply me with some much-needed pecuniary padding. As soon as my T4s landed on my desk, I assembled all my pertinent information in a tidy pile, with paperclip just to show those fuckers I mean business, and hustled down to H&R Block: last year I got around two hundred dollars, and since my pay has remained at a (pitifully) consistent level since then � at least, until my recent lesson in random cruelty from the pay department � I anticipated something similar this time around.

Not so! Apparently the government actually deducted less tax this year � bastards! � which translates to zero return. Sorry, not quite zero: one dollar and one cent. When I receive my cheque in the mail for one dollar and one cent, I think I�ll turn it over, endorse it, write �No, fuck YOU,� and mail it right back to the CCRA.

Really adding insult to injury, I walked out of H&R Block seventy-five dollars poorer, since they had to charge me to file my taxes � something I would have done myself, except that I wanted the imagined �return� right away.

This neatly ties into indignity number four: last night I found myself standing at the checkout counter of the grocery store with seventy dollars� worth of food, and my debit card was returned to me with an angry little �insufficient funds� printout. I made the requisite �What? That�s not possible! I�ll be speaking to my financial advisor first thing tomorrow!� face and put my groceries on my credit card; all under the observation of the pair of GangstaZ behind me in line, who were buying two cases of Vanilla Pepsi (please tell me you�re going to use that to clean your Honda Civic�s engine and not put it in your mouth) and flipping through entertainment mags, commenting derisively that �Yo, I ain�t heard of any of these peeps�; like really, you are NOTHING in show biz unless Dick Droopy Drawers from Ottawa has heard of you. Fuck! And again I say FUCK.