Sam is always there, watching, checking, being a good man. He lingers everywhere you go these days.

Once a year Sam requires that I spend about three or four days devoting my addled brain and this computer to his favorite fancy, Taxes.

This year, I labored and sweat to do that, in my fashion. My fashion is to wait until the very last week. I do that because I always owe Sam cash when it is done, and I do not want to hand it over before it is due.

I have always dropped those envelopes in the mail to the Gummints (that includes the State) on the 15th of April. Why allow Sam to have the cash even a day earlier? Does he think I am stupid?

Well, for the past few years I have used TurboTax, a miracle of digital science. For the past few years I have still smarted and bled from my previous experiences with H & R Bunco, who charged me almost five hundred dollars to do a simple tax return wherein I owed a hundred bucks to Sam. Imagine! What a racket! Charging people so they can PAY Sam!

TurboTax costs about a hundred bucks a year for the program. It keeps the record of last year's return and you can keep comparing this year's to last year's as you go along through the menu. It takes you through the whole thing without having to read those ridiculous booklets printed by the people who work for Sam to get your cash: the infamous I.R.S., which actually means "Irritating Rectal Spies."

If you don't use TurboTax you are 1. wasting your time, 2. wasting money going to H & R Bunco, and 3. Stupid.

This year, TurboTax got me zero.

Zero sounds bad, right?

But I don't withhold any taxes because I am semi-retired, do freelance work and sell stuff. So that is why I usually owe Sam.

This year, I not only don't OWE, but according to TurboTax I am going to get a STIMULUS check for $300!

Holy TurboTax!

I win! I win! I win!

Now, back to baseball.