tax day!

All across the golden plains, bustling metropolises, and high mountains, the great people of america are scrambling to pay, or if you're lucky, be paid by, ole uncle sam. It started out feeling like a lucky day. My refund was larger than I thought it would be, all my shit was printed out, and all I had to do to appease the wrathe of the IRS was make to the post office by 5. Work kinda sucked-it was so windy i thought I was going to get blown away and the job wasnt that fun. But whatever. I finally finish, get things cleaned up start packing my tools, take a look at my phone just to make sure i've got time to make it to the post office.

Mutherfucker. My screen is cracked. Still, no big deal, I think to my self. I'll get another from Wallmart tonight for like 20 bones. (no it wont take pictures and play tunes, there's no built in video editor, but it'll let me text and talk). I get the truck packed, take a couple swallows of water, light a smoke, fire up the old s10 and start cruising home.

I'm chugging up the last hill on 470 toward golden, hoping the post office hasn't closed yet, thinking about climbing projects, beer and titties, but mostly day dreaming about that rebate that's coming in a month, and thinking I'll use it to help buy a car that doesnt have 285K miles.

CLUNK. "what the hell was that?" I'm slowing down. "WTF is going on?" Possibilities are racing through my head. Did my new clutch just fly apart? Is an invisible dragon trying to steal a ride? I remember that occasionally, my transmision pops into neatral out of 4th gear and this hill is steep enough and my truck old enough, I barely maintain 60 miles an hour even down in 4th.

I'm still slowing down.

I shift out and back into 4th. Damn my engine feels weird when I rev it.

I'm doing about 45 now. I look up in my review mirror to see how much I've clogged the interstate. I'll never really know because all I can see is a giant cloud of blue smoke fpllowing me. The giant traffic jam is left up to my imagination. I look to my right and left in vain hope that there is some other clunker responsible for all that damned pollution.

"that's it, i'm done for. I've thrown a rod or worse"

My heart doesn't sink. Every organ in my chest plummets. Streams of apoplectic filth stream forth a torrent from my mouth with more force and violence than Clear Creek's class V rapids. Had a sailor been sitting in the passenger seat he would have blushed. And probably would have learned a thing or two.

That lasts for about 15 seconds. Some sort of sanity returns and I think about pulling over but decide to try to make it home on my blown engine.

I'm now going about 35.

I have 4 stoplights to make through. I'm done at stoplight numero uno. I stop. It dies. It does not start. Luckily the road is downhill so i coast through the intersection. Nobody honks. Apparently this is common in Colorado with all us dipshit dirtbags running around. It cranks and cranks and does not start and I add oil and it still does not start.

I start thumbing through my phone to get a ride. "fecking shit. I my screen is cracked and I cant see anything". My first few attempts to dial blind fail. But finally i get a hold of Angela, and 30 minutes later I'm sitting at the Spot having a beer, having too many smokes, and skeeming with Cass on how we'll con AAA into towing the piece of shit for free.

But after all that, I still got my taxes postmarked 4-15-2008. And on the 15th of April, that's all that matters.