So many annual rituals bind people together. We have weddings and births celebrated within families, and we have astronomical events like the Winter Solstice celebrated across multiple cultures. For people who enjoy watching others compete, we have the Super Bowl, Triple Crown, Indy 500, March Madness, Reno Air Races, and a host of others. For those who build and fly their own aircraft, we have AirVenture at Oshkosh, WI. And for the more cosmically minded, there are even longer cycles, like those of Halley’s comet or the Transit of Venus. (Yes, that’s a real thing, even though it sounds like something from the pulps at the checkout stand–“Masonic Lodge Denies That Days Of Our Lives Cast Member Found Elvis Using Transit Of Venus In Ancient Roman Archaeological Dig!”)

If you read my last post, you won’t be surprised to hear that I was raised with Christmas and Thanksgiving as the two biggest annual events, followed by birthdays and Easter. The strongest emotional memories are from Christmas and Easter because they both had really good music and really good candy. Even when people stray from the church, they often come back on Christmas and Easter as part of family rituals or for the music. They may give up on their god, but they can’t give up the human ritual and its ties to their childhood.

Then there are other annual rituals, like the unpleasant one many of us have just completed (and that many others are still facing): filing income tax returns. I know next-to-nothing about taxation in other countries, but in the U.S.A. we loathe the deadline of April 15th. Many of us live in states that also tax our income, so we have to fill out the paperwork twice. Our tax laws have all the order and logic of a tribe of chimerical hydras tied in Gordian knots, Jello-wrestling in a Klein bottle. Alien lawyers in UFOs would use our tax laws as proof that humanity was not a sentient species. For my part, I am happy to fork out a few dollars for software that does the calculations and generates the paperwork. Not only does it save me from learning several thousand arbitrary and ultimately uninteresting details, it is less expensive than hiring human tax professionals. (The last time I used a human, he didn’t finish until lunchtime on the day the taxes had to be mailed. Fortunately, I had given up on him and done the taxes myself using software. For the record, Turbo Tax did a better job.)

Due to what I’ll simply call “family issues”, I have to do the ritual six times each year, filing three different returns for both federal and state authorities. I’m always very glad when it’s over. My drink at this moment contains a substantial quantity of rum. But for all the pain, it’s still a ritual and still binds us together. It marks the passing of time and keeps us away from the mental trap where each day is just like the one before it. And so, to everyone who hasn’t done their taxes yet, I raise my glass and say “BOHICA!”