A Different Drum: Tax refund wish list as exciting as paying bills

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”? I am guessing all those who crooned the song, from Margaret Whiting to The Orioles doo-wop group, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Norah Jones (who two years ago put out a Billie Holiday-esque remake of the 1947 December classic jazz ballad), had better answers to their New Year’s Eve plans.

No matter where I’ve attempted to go, what I’ve attempted to do or who I’ve spent the occasion with, I’m not a lot of fun on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps I don’t buy enough into the holiday hype. Maybe I don’t wear a sparkly enough get-up or silly enough hat. And I know I don’t drink enough by anyone’s standards to “forget your troubles, come on get happy,” as Judy Garland instructed back before I was even born.

My favorite New Year’s Eve memories remain those collected hanging out with our Grandma Kate years while our parents attended grownup celebrations with other couples. Other memories recall my spending the night at my best friend’s house, where we popped dozens of balloons we’d fastened to the ceiling via static electricity, then ate lemon cake and ice cream while toasting one another with Vernors after we’d collectively chanted the midnight countdown.

Small wonder I also lack articulate answers for an ordinary, small talk question such as, “What are you looking forward to doing this weekend?” I can’t seem to hide an incredulous look from hijacking my face while I simultaneously try to repress the “What?!” that threatens to erupt from my mouth, followed by an especially snarky comment, like, “My goal is to survive the weekend as I try to get done all the things I felt too crappy to accomplish during the week.”

Nobody wants to hear or deserves to hear that, no matter how truthful it might be. The rules of polite social discourse mandate I instead respond with carefree and fluffy commentary that’s more in alignment with the weekend others have on tap for themselves.

For instance, I should say something more along the lines of “I think I’ll go for a peach and vanilla twist cone at the little ice cream place in a nearby town when I go out for a drive to take in spring’s beauty.”

That certainly sounds more civilized than last Saturday’s reality of me needing to run errands, buy groceries and fill gas cans for Sunday lawn mowing. However, I’d been unable (for the past three weeks) to find my main set of car keys. Once again I made them vanish.

On Saturday morning, the stakes were raised when my son accidentally forgot to return my spare set from his pocket after he unlocked my car to use my tire pressure gauge. He was a 30-minute drive away at his girlfriend’s house when I realized I’d been keylessly stranded, which forced my daughter to cut short her plans with a friend in order to transport me places.

I was reminded why I shop alone: she asked for all kinds of things at each of our stops, which, where I gave it, ran up my bill. The only thing that could have worsened the day was if it had been Dec. 31 – New Year’s Eve! Over an early dinner, we talked about what cool things different people we knew were using their income tax refunds to purchase. They ranged from bicycles to cosmetic procedures and vacations. The conversation eventually circled to another of my least-favorite questions, “What are you going to spend your income tax refund on?”

First, let me say there’s nothing I’d like more than a new bicycle or a vacation. The cosmetic procedure? Probably not; I’m pretty doctored-out already. So I recited a list that included what I’ve already spent or plan to spend.

Are you ready? Septic-tank pumping and repair; full-scale allergy testing for me; a new mailbox to replace my hit-and-run victim; the spaying of both puppies; my annual garbage service bill; repairs to my daughter’s car; a back-ordered cooling fan for mine; and a five-year AARP membership renewal.

My plans for my 2022 tax refund are as over-the-top titillating as my 2023 New Year’s Eve is heading toward spectacular!

— Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: A Different Drum: Tax refund wish list as exciting as paying bills