If you live in the mid-Atlantic you learn that weather forecasters are, how should we put this, challenged. Last week our fearless prognosticators were warning of a big snow storm today, just the news nobody around here wanted to hear. Having destroyed a couple of shovels during the previous storm, my wife made a trip to the local big boxes for a new shovel. Home Depot? Nope. Walmart? Nada. Lowes? Not gonna happen. She called the Ace Hardware in Old Town Alexandria. They had seven shovels left but “you’d better hurry.” She made it in time and now she has a nice red snow shovel. (As Bob Dylan once wrote: All I need is a red snow shovel, three inches, and the truth.) Just in time for the big event.
Last week I rode outside for the first time since the Snowcrete messed up the roads. My first ride was rather painful but just being back on The Mule and out of the basement was a treat. I managed five rides over seven days, 167 miles. And, except for some huffing and puffing on killer hills, it felt great.
Yesterday was snow-event eve. It rained all day. The red shovel stood boldly next to the front door. Avoiding the elements, I rode 20 miles in the basement on Big Nellie. Then I drove to the BloodMobile down the street. The donation went fine but I was light headed afterwards. Pro tip: don’t work out before donating blood. I managed to give a pint but I had a headache for the rest of the night.
Usually donors receive a bright t-shirt with unsubtle graphics indicating that the wearer donated. This time, as if they knew I was coming, the BloodMobile folks gave out a soft, blue blanket. When I returned home from the BloodMobile, I spent two hours after on the couch wrapped up in it.
Our snowstorm was a bust, one inch that melted by noon. The red shovel will have to wait.
I had planned to spend the day shoveling so I took a guilt-free day off of riding. Instead I wrassled with an IRS gift tax form. Income tax software does not include this form so I printed out the form, took pen in hand, and did my best reading the inscrutable IRS instructions. (Abandon hope all ye…) Luckily, I took Anal Accounting 101 in college.
It took over an hour before I realized that the most important calculation of the 10-page packet of forms was on Page 6. Not Page 1 or Page 2, or Pages 3, 4, and 5 which were utterly irrelevant to my situation, but Page 6. Also, the IRS requires a Notice, written and signed by your spouse that says that your spouse is splitting the gift with you. Of course, this is redundant with the info you’ve already provided on the form itself but rules are rules.
Conveniently, the IRS don’t provide a copy of the required Notice; filers are left to wing it. (I found an example on-line.) One advantage of filing on paper is that you can attach explanations and supporting math so that, if you screw up the form itself, some poor IRS accountant presumably can set things right. (You do not have to supply photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining each one, as in Alice’s Restaurant.) And so that’s what I did. When I finished I had to repeat the process with my wife’s name on the top of a separate 10-page set of forms.
Of course, the entire exercise is just for show because under current law I won’t owe any gift tax unless I die with an estate of over $13 million. Somewhere in a cave in Kansas my gift tax form will be gathering dust just waiting for me to win the lottery and kick the bucket.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 