Each year on April 15th, taxes are to be filed. I know this, I’ve been filing taxes for years. But for some reason, I wait until the absolute LAST MINUTE. Every single time.

Here’s the thing. I have done our taxes for the last seven years, like correctly and stuff. I mean, I’m not in jail, so assume I have the thumbs up. Despite being married to an Asian man that is excellent at math, I am in charge of all things payment and bank related here at Casa de Dubs. I am not being stereotypical by any means when I say that he’s Asian and he’s excels at math, he is and he does. And honestly, I’ve really never met an Asian that was a straight up genius at life and when I married one, I thought I could stop doing my own effing taxes. WRONG.

I’m quite sure that my reasoning behind waiting until the last possible day to finish up with Uncle Sam is because I convince myself that we are going to owe money out of our eyeballs. We never do because we overpay throughout the year (Asian husband’s idea) and we always get money back. Besides personal taxes, we also had business taxes to file and I knew we would totally owe for that hot mess.

And being how I am not Asian, I suck at math. It amazes me every month when bills are paid (semi) on time and we still manage to even have 57 cents left over.

Here’s my top secret method to paying bills.

1. Get bill in mail. Don’t open it.

2. Lay it on counter and give it hateful side eye every time you walk by it.

3. Wait about three weeks and open it.

4. See the bill is due in three days, freak and log on to bank account and hope we have funds.

5. Breathe sigh of relief because we have way more money than I thought. Pay all of our bills in four minutes.

6. Repeat every 30 days.

Being how I am a money management guru and my head would probably explode if I tried to do two sets of taxes, I decided that it would be in our best interest if I did something I have never done before: I had our taxes done by someone else.

Of course, I call on April 12th to see if I can make an appointment. I can? Great. Oh, you want me to come on the 15th at 1 p.m.? Do you have anything sooner, you know, because I’m an asshole who only waited until the last minute and I don’t have a sitter for the 15th. Fine, see you at 1 p.m. on the 15th.

All the way over in the car, I’m talking this up big time to Troy. Because not only have I waited until the last possible minute to file, I have to take my toddler. Good times. I have packed a bag for what looks like the damn apocalypse, complete with toy cars, his favorite stuffed animal, books, a sippy and the pièce de résistance, a coloring book and markers. I plan on doling it out slowly, saving the markers as my go to last resort toy. He loves markers more than anything and he’s not allowed to have them. Ever. Ask my sofa. I hear myself tell him he has to be very, very good and I see him staring at me in the rear view mirror. I don’t even know what I mean by that, he’s two. So basically that translates to “Don’t set anything on fire”.

We walked into the joint and it’s packed. It’s a gigantic open room with a bunch of desks crammed in it and each tax person has a laptop. Everyone stops what they are doing and turns to look at us and Troy announces, “HELL-DOH!” (Hello) and you could have heard a pin drop. And my soul. He is the only person under the age of not a grown up. I know immediately this is going to be the most taxing (haha, see how I did that? sorry) hour and a half of my life.

I am paired up with a gruff, down to business Grandpa-type man and he introduces himself to me. He calls Troy “little solider” and tells him to sit in a folding chair across from us. Yeah, right. Troy climbs down, walks over, points and says “Puter-Puter?” That is Troy talk for Let Me Punch All The Buttons On Your Computer And Make Your Toolbar Disappear So Your Mom Has To Email Tech Support.

I immediately dump the bag out and hand Troy the markers.

This bides us a good twenty minutes. Troy is sitting at my feet, happy and pretending to draw bicycles all over Zoe’s coloring book. The grumpy tax man is plugging in our information and is so slow that I think this might be the first time he’s ever seen a computer. He wins me over by telling me that he got us an extra $287 by something or other and line something else and then apologizes for being so slow because his eyes aren’t what they used to be, but Hey! I’m not doing the taxes! Take all the time in the world! This isn’t that bad!

And then Troy announces he has “Hungies” (Hungries) and is signing he wants to eat. He wants a snack, the only thing I did not pack in the bag because we just had lunch. I ask the tax man if there is a vending machine and he tells me no, but that he will be right back. He comes back with a cooler and asks if Troy is allergic to peanuts. I say no and he gives Troy his own package of two peanut butter cookies, like right out of his own personal lunch stash. Troy now loves tax man and is quietly eating his cookies and drawing with his markers, a tiny bit on the carpet, but he’s quiet! This is the nicest thing ever. EVER. Tax man is like toddler whisperer.

Troy then proceeds to finish the cookies and is ticked. You would think he never gets cookies at home and is stomping his tiny toddler feet, signing for more. Tax man/toddler whisperer tells Troy that he’s sorry and he’s all out of peanut butter cookies.

Troy takes this opportunity, in a room filled with people frantically trying to get their taxes finished and people hard at work finishing those people’s taxes, to scream at the top of his not-so-tiny toddler lungs, “MORE PEA-NUS!”

It sounds just like it looks.

I know he meant More Peanuts, you know he meant More Peanuts, but in that room on April 15th, I wanted to die.

Everyone just stopped and looked around, like “Did we just hear what we think we thought we heard?” And then he screamed it again. And is now lying on the floor and throwing markers.

I forcibly laugh, bend down to pick Troy and then in a too high-pitched voice was all, “He means PEANUTS, he just had a PEANUT butter cookie. Troy, Momma will get you more cookies as soon as we leave here, OK?” Except what I really meant was if you say PEA-NUS one more time, you will never see another cookie, so help me Jesus. He keeps repeating it and then someone laughs. And then someone else. I can feel my face burning like the fire of a thousand suns.

Troy knows he has won. He sits on my lap, emptying out my wallet, pausing to yell “PEA-NUS!” while clapping and laughing, trying to make everyone else laugh because PEANUTS are hilarious. Tax man finally finishes up our taxes, I thank him and scramble to pack up all of our stuff. When we are leaving, Troy is stopping at every desk, telling people goodbye and high-fiving them. I feel like I am quite possibly raising Eddie Murphy. Or a politician.

When I get home and relay the whole incident to Jeff, he thinks it’s pretty funny. I tell him that it was completely mortifying at the time and while they did an amazing job on the taxes, I can never go back. Jeff told me that’s what I get for not doing the taxes myself.

He almost got punched right in the PEANUTS. For real.