most taxing

Done.

But instead of feeling relieved I feel deflated.
The last days passed in a flurry of utmost irritation and chagrin,  ready to lash out at anyone who dared come near me let alone speak to me. Nothing went smoothly, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.
I cursed this day and age, where you can't simply add up and subtract a few bills and hand it over, pay up, or maybe get a return.

First of all, I discover I made a bit of a hash of things last year, doing the 2008 taxes.
I remember I had left it, literally, to the last minute. Trying to rush off a wild guess before midnight on the 31st of March, I couldn't log in, the server was overcrowded so it didn't get sent till 01.30 hrs April 1st.
I got fined for that, 90 minutes late, typical Dutch, time is money here.
Totally pissed off I just shoved the lot into my desk and blocked it all out, till now.
And now I can't make sense of it, too much time has passed, got to go over it all again and come up with something credible.
Then there's the calculator.
Each time I add up numbers, the outcome is different. It's not just this calculator, I have had them in all shapes and forms, always the same problem.
Must be me, an unconscious form of passive resistance? Very annoying and counter productive.

I'll save you the aggravating details, like all of a sudden everybody I know needed me for some trivial thing or other, disturbing me, well, I told them where they could stick their cups of coffee and feeble attempts at joviality.
Are they mad?
Well, they are now. I just about managed to alienate everyone near to me. 

A few hours before the deadline I came up with something I hoped we could all live with.
Log in, fill in, get their result and if that seems right, you submit - not that I am feeling in any way submissive. But, hey, almost there.

Can't log in. Something to do with the password. But I've got it here, worked last time.
Two more attempts to go. Caps locked? No, one more go and if that fails I can't try again till after the zero hour.
Damn. Another fine.

I find out you have to renew your password every two years, mine has lapsed.
God give me strength. The new passwords that come to mind are not fit to repeat here, but use your imagination.
I fill it in, just in the nick of time, quick, without checking, I send it off - hold on.............
What did it say at the bottom? What was the result? Pay, return, even?
I didn't look. Stupid.

But at least I got it done in time and I can now take it easy and calmly study what I have actually done.
I need to print it out for my accountant too (of course, I do have one, I am just doing the prelims.)

I can't. For some incomprehensible reason I can see I delivered the goods but now the taxman wont let me check what I sent, probably laughing his head off now.

I am going to have a drink or two.
Sooner or later a blue envelope will fall onto the doormat and all will be revealed.
I am past caring.

Whatever happened to those unsmiling tax-inspectors who summoned you to their bleak offices?
One once demanded I'd show him the minus 2.038, 67 euro I had in the kitty.
Explaining it's impossible to have less than nothing in your possession, he all but slapped me with his ruler.
I was mortified.

Come to think of it, on-line bureaucracy has its advantages.
No tell tale blushes or stammering, never mind hot angry tears.

Well, dear cyber tax man, see you next year, same time, I guess, or maybe just a little sooner would be prudent............

what do you think?