Did you know?

Did you know that getting your taxes back at the end of the year is like getting welfare or food stamps?

No shit? I didn't either!

Scout's birth year is jacked up with the Social Security office (has been for years). Because of this, we can't use free or inexpensive online tax services (we've tried it numerous times, and it always comes back with an error of some sort). I nag him every year about changing it so we don't have to go to H&R Block, or some other highly priced place with poorly trained employees (because for some reason, his social is good there - maybe because he can show ID? Who knows).

So we went to get our taxes done a few weeks ago. We sat down at a desk with a first-timer. Greeeaat. I knew we had at least one complicated thing on the list to take care of and now this was going to take a while. And we brought a squirmy, cranky 13 month old. Good times.

So at the end of it all, we had no tax liability, which meant we'd be getting everything back that we paid in. At that point, we hadn't even touched the adoption expenses, so I asked if they would carry over to the next tax year. The rookie obviously didn't know the answer and said, "Oh, let me ask (insert German woman's name)! She's been here for nineteen years!"

German Lady (I only specify her original national identity because 1) If you know any Germans - which I do - you know that their view of government is TOTALLY different from an average American's, most certainly different from mine, and 2) Germans - at least with me, for some reason - NEVER hold anything back. They say what they think - to hell with what your reaction is. Yes, I'm generalizing. Get over it.) explained to me that that adoption expenses would not carry over because the government is giving me a helping hand by giving all of my taxes back.

I shot her a look of, WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? I'm completely positive that, had someone snapped a photo of me at that very moment, I would have looked like an enraged serial killer.

Scout was sitting in between where I was sitting and where she was standing, and I nudged his knee as if to say, "You better play Night Club Bouncer because this bitch is about to get it." Scout took the cue and sat up in his chair.

However, German lady mistranslated my Crazy Person Look to say, "I don't understand, could you please explain it to me the way you would to a preschooler?"

So she proceeded to lower her arm and cup her hand. "See," she said, "the government is giving you a helping hand. They are giving you all of your taxes back. Really, it's like welfare. Or food stamps. It sounds bad, but it's not."

I am telling you guys, I almost had a meltdown in H&R Block.

I may or may not have said before that I'm an All-or-Nothing kind of girl. In the way that I Deal With Things, I had two options.

1. Leave H&R block peacefully, with my husband, son, and pending tax return.

2. Leave H&R block in the back of a police car for violently assaulting German Lady while yelling, "Welfare is money someone HASN'T earned, financed by other hard-working people like my PARENTS who pay money INTO taxes every year! You know what getting all of OUR money back means, German Lady? It means that we don't make enough to pay for OTHER people's electric bills and dairy products!"

Guess which option I chose. (Hint: I didn't leave in the back of a squad car.)

Oh, how I wish that I could be a Middle of the Road kind of girl. I wish I could have politely told her what a tool she was. And that she should consider moving back to her country of origin before her next explanation of the intricacies of our country's welfare system to a possible Option Number Two American.