Even though I am now in “advanced retirement,” there still seems to be too much to do. For example, this morning I had to decide among doing my taxes, filling out a form for the Blonde in the house, working on a printer that claims that it has a paper jam when it doesn’t, read some pages in an interesting book by one of my Independent Living neighbors or write this column. Frankly, aside from reading the book, I was not thrilled about facing any of them. I thought about flipping my lucky coin to help with my choice, but since we moved my lucky coin is in hiding. I guess hunting for the coin is another thing I can do this morning.
Things do have a habit of working themselves out. Apparently, the opening bell rang at 9 a.m., this morning for registering for class at The Enrichment Academy. They really meant 9 a.m. as you could not bring up a registration form until then online. Therefore, my good wife determined to go to a recreation center to sign up for classes in person, which relieved me of one task (it would have been number one on the list, I can assure you). Then, by some miracle of modern science, I was able to get a live person in support at the company that put my stupid printer together.
A cheerful young lady there listened to my tale of woe on the printer that claimed it had a paper jam when it didn’t. I might add that both The Blonde and I checked and there was not even a piece of paper anywhere in the printer. The printer did advise me to click or push what looked like a battery to find out more about paper jams. Naturally, there was nothing on the printer that I could push that even remotely looked like a battery. I dutifully explained all of this to the cheerful young lady. She then cheerfully told me that it was a hardware problem and in essence get rid of the piece of junk and get a new one. I have now done so. At least I have ordered one, but it is not here yet.
Next, I looked at doing my taxes. I brought up my super-duper easy tax program. The first thing it said it would do – assuming I pushed the proper key – was bring up my information from last year. Naturally, I have a new computer, and the geek who transferred files from the old computer, while indicating that all was well, was a little off. Last year’s tax form was not there, so now I had to start from scratch. The program did tell me that I could bring up financial information directly – if the company was on their list. It was on their list, but it only brought up part of the information. This did help me scratch off another task for today – I am going to wait until tomorrow to work on my taxes. I do have until the 15th of next month!
I am now finishing this column, and I have realized where the lucky coin is located, so I am going to do what would have eased my frustration if I had done it first. That is, I am going to read some more of my neighbor’s book. It is about the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1933-42. It explains what life was like especially in South Carolina back then and what the CCC did to help out.
I know a bunch of people who should read about those times. They might change their minds some about what we have today!
Villager Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages.