Two things are certain he said: Death and Taxes.

This rings very true in this day and age as you get older and start using your Tax Refund Check to pay for the death of loved ones.

Didn't figure the two would  combine into a big ball of "What the fuck" together...didja Benji? Well...neither did I.

If I was by myself I would be the Willy Nelson or Wesley Snipes (respectively) of taxes: "I know they are there and I should do them...nah. I got to wash my hair everyday...all month" I'm lucky to have a person in my life who is a built in accountant. It is tax life cheating. Along with health cheating too as he works in the healthcare industry.

My spleen falls out? Five bucks. This time of the year? We have already spent our Tax Refund Check around the middle of February. People hate us for this. I can understand. I would hate me too if I was not lucky to have this person in my life.

For all purposes every year for the last five years we have spent our tax returns way before we even get them. He starts plugging everything into that handy dandy online system that does everything he used to do longhand. Then we start planning the money we get back for the usual: Things we sure don't need. Things like computer toys that we need to upgrade and pay money on the next returns. DVD's of films I know he is going to replace the following year at a place like Amoeba in Los Angeles.

For all purposes the government should have loved people like us. The people who don't put our tax money into a savings account or bearing interest sort of thing and go out and directly blow it buying a Blu-Ray and gadgets for the car. High end items with the money we invested getting it out of our paychecks.

I will admit. We were as dumb as a bag of bought online pet rocks from Amazon.

That was until our free wheeling "Lets get a mini robot to vacuum our floor" buying spree last year was cut short when we were hit with two deaths in our family: My mother (from Alzheimer's) and his sister (from Cancer). The horribleness of it all: The same week. (My mother on a Tuesday. His sister that Saturday).

It's amazing how your spending changes when you get older. You reconsider a fine dining restaurant in celebration of getting "Any Money" back from taxes in lieu of wondering how well you grandmother is doing. You start thinking about the cost of a marble headstone for your mother in lieu of the marble countertops you would like to put into your kitchen.

Death makes you to keep your tax money and put it into a savings account. That is what I learned about Death and Taxes that Ben didn't think about back then.

It probably makes our current Economic Structure rueful of Death and that realization hitting people like me and my husband, that is for sure.

Sorry government. I would have bought an Apple iPad Two with our tax returns in February? But that was socked away in our new Death Savings Account.

Don't blame me. Blame Death, Taxes.