I’d like to give a big shout-out to all of those who filed their income-tax returns between 11 and 11:59 Monday night.
Procrastinators don’t get enough credit. Truly. Just think: If everyone in your neighborhood left for work at the same time, there’d be a huge bottleneck at the subdivision exit every morning.
Same with taxes. Sure, go ahead and pat yourself on the back if you file your return the instant you get all your tax forms in hand. But if procrastinators didn’t follow their instincts, the IRS would get millions of returns all on the same day, and the people who are accustomed to receiving their refunds quickly would be fuming and fussing about the delays.
And can you imagine how mad they’d be if they found out that regular procrastinators had decided to be punctual for once, and their refunds came back sooner than those of lifelong early filers?
I remember the elation I used to feel as I handed my paper return off to a postal employee at the main post office with midnight breathing down my neck. It felt patriotic – like voting in person on Election Day. E-filing has taken that little buzz away, though I was excited for a friend who told me Sunday night that she’d be driving her return over to the post office on Monday.
As for me, I’d been stressed out for weeks, waiting for a berating phone call from my friend who does my taxes. I finally talked to her on Sunday, and we had them done before midnight. I found out the reason she hadn’t been bugging me was that she didn’t even realize that Monday was Tax Day this year. She thought it was in June.
Nothing hurts a procrastinator’s feelings more than no one noticing they’re late.
— Now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has eased up on mask-wearing guidelines, it feels like the Wild West out there. Or actually not. Back in those days, bad guys wore masks. Now, I’m pretty sure that the people wearing masks are the ones who have had their vaccines but are concerned about keeping Covid from spreading, while most of the maskless wonders are people who never or barely bothered to wear a mask when they were asked to do so.
Funny how so many people have become medical experts over the past 14 months. Pardon me if I continue to follow the advice of people who’ve actually had medical training.
— If you’ve been craving some dance in your life, here’s a tip for you: The Tennessee Children’s Dance Ensemble will perform at 8 p.m. Friday and 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, May 21-22, at Arnwine’s on Bearden Hill, 6217 Kingston Pike.
Like all performers, the ensemble was sidelined in March 2020 due to the pandemic, and the young dancers and their directors have been eager to put on a show again. Now’s a great time to see Tennessee’s dancing Goodwill Ambassadors.
Tickets: 865-584-9636
(Full disclosure: I helped edit the TCDE magazine this year.)
Betsy Pickle is a veteran reporter and editor who occasionally likes to share her opinions with KnoxTNToday readers.