Early in the morning when no one else is awake or late at night after the children are put to sleep, I collect bags and shoeboxes full of them.
I find them in glove compartments of cars, and long ago discarded boxes in garages. Somehow they collect in every corner of the house or the top and bottom of every closet, waiting patiently to be discovered once again.
I leave no seat cushion unturned; I comb through the basement and the attic with the hope of finding the needed information. Although faded, crumpled, and perhaps even forgotten, receipts of every kind take on a renewed importance this time of the year. Their importance can best be described with two words: Tax refund.
Every January I make the same promise: this will be the year I become organized and set up a filing system. I will no longer spend the entire month of March staring at faded receipts found only after many days of painstaking searching.
Still, inspired by hope that each year will be different, I make a trip in February to the office supply store. I purchase file boxes, multi-colored dividers and folders, sticky notes, boxes of assorted paper clips, and my favorite snacks. After all, low blood sugar could slow down the number crunching process of tax preparation.
All organizational office supplies are stored for a month until after I finish this year’s taxes. After being stored for over a month, I forget the organizational office supplies.
The month of May comes and brings with it warmer weather, the hard-fought tax refund, and a mental reminder of the January promise.
I dig the office supplies out from the bottom of the closet and finally begin work on a new filing system. This continues until we start up a discussion about what to do with the refund. After only about 10 minutes, the planning of the summer vacation begins.
The new filing system is once again forgotten about for the next two months. After all, the summer is full of fun, adventures and time spent with family. It’s not supposed to be full of time spent with a new filing system, collecting faded receipts, and prepping for a tax season that’s still some eight months away.
Summer finally ends. August ushers in heat and humidity, stinging bugs of all varieties, and fighting throngs of other parents also dragging their kids through back to school shopping. Between sweating, swatting, and pushing, thoughts of a new filing system fade completely from my mind.
September and October means juggling work, getting kids to school, after-school activities, cooking dinner, and checking homework that no one says they have until questioned. Shuttling kids, doing work around the house that didn’t get done during the week, and watching football fill each weekend.
Thoughts of starting a new filing system may enter my mind, but they leave as quickly as they come. By now, filing hasn’t been done for 10 months. Waiting another month or two won’t make much difference.
With November and December being holiday months, all attention now turns towards family and friends. Prepping to host family for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas is almost a full-time job.
When traveling to see family, searching for the best ticket prices is an arduous task and then hotel reservations have to be made. Packing must also be done.
Tax preparation is the last thought on my mind during this time, and rightly so. Besides, it’s the last week of the year and the last chance for a family vacation.
January arrives and brings all those bills from the holidays and the bills from that last family vacation. Thoughts now turn towards the hopes and dreams of the New Year and an old familiar promise is made once again.
This will be the year I finally get organized.
[Rick Ryckeley, who lives in Senoia, served as a firefighter for more than two decades and has been a weekly columnist since 2001. His email is storiesbyrick@gmail.com. His books are available at www.RickRyckeley.com.]
