Tax Year 2012

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Procrastination; it has never been one of my coping mechanism. That all changed today.  I have a stack of financial papers to evaluate and sort. Then, I have to make sense of them and whip them into numeric sense....all in preparation for the tax man who cometh.  It seems to me that I race against this particular deadline earlier every year.  However, I have found myself drifting lately, precariously off-course, due to the ready availability of on-line shopping.  I have been at my computer with occasional doses of concerted effort for the better part of four hours.  Now, however, I am much more intrigued with January White Sales than calculating deductions. I am guilty of being seduced by handbags and tempted by sweet nothings of silk and lace.  I tried to satiate the desire by simply relenting. I window-shopped on Nordstrom, browsed Bed, Bath and Beyond, even popped in on Amazon.  When in doubt, books can never be considered extraneous, can they?  To my credit, I have not spent a penny. I have, unfortunately, filled numerous shopping carts with goods too alluring to pass upon.  These days, most of the larger companies have embedded software that sends messages to prospective buyers such as, “Oops, you have left something in your cart! Perhaps you would like to visit us again. While you are retrieving your item, be sure to take advantage of our sale this week!”

I am savvy. I know better. I fill carts with confidence and a limitless budget. Then, I purge. I purge openly, freely, indiscriminately. I DO NOT LOOK at all the books and bags and bras that might be mine if I opened my wallet or gave up my credit card number.  I DO NOT revisit my cart to see what first enticed me.  If I did that, I might wind up having insufficient funds to pay the tax man his due. Procrastination can lead to delays, but sometimes, it simply offers a healthy distraction.