I forgot to enter Emile’s A+ Certification exam fees on our taxes this year. For some reason that thought occurred to me while I was in Kitchener having breakfast at Wimpy’s about 2 weeks ago. It was excellent breakfast, prepared exactly as I asked them to – no oil, no butter, no potatoes and turkey bacon. Alas, I have already filed this year’s taxes and it was $70 of refund – I didn’t want to wait a year to pick it up next year. It’s $70! Apparently, the government has a form for just such events.
About 10 years ago, my mom ordered a 2-drawer black legal for me from Staples as a birthday gift. In our family gifts for organization mean the most. Staples had significant difficulty delivering the filing cabinet. Although my mom had requested evening delivery (I haven’t always been unemployed, people), the delivery team working for Staples repeatedly tried to deliver it during the day. In fact, we tried it THREE times and they never did get it right. One of my neighbours accepted delivery of the filing cabinet one afternoon. When I opened the filing cabinet, I found a scratch on the left side and a dent on the top. And we began the cycle again. Staples tried to replace the filing cabinet THREE times during the day whilst I was at work. (despite confirming evening delivery each time). At this point, it was just funny. Finally, again, a neighbour accepted the replacement cabinet for me, but of course that left me with the old one. To apologize for the chaos, Staples refunded the cost of the filing cabinet and gave my mom a $200 store credit. So I got 1 perfect filing cabinet, 1 perfectly functional filing cabinet and 1 beautiful black manager’s chair for nothing but a hassle.
Not too many people need 4 legal sized drawers of documents, so I used much of it for storage. When Emile and I moved in together, we created “his and hers” cabinets and his old grey 4-drawer letter one was relegated to the basement. And through our many moves, this is how it has stayed. Our filing systems are different – I keep everything in cream coloured file folders with careful sharpie labels in alphabetical order. Emile uses hanging folders only and tends to not label items.
It didn’t matter to me really – do what you want. After all, as the joint items were generally filed in my cabinet, I could find what I was looking for. But when I went searching for those A+ exam receipts, could I find them? Where are the labels? Is any of this stuff in alphabetical order? Why is the Fairy Avenue house Union Gas bill in with the old Christmas cards?
Not a wise man gets between me and a tax refund. So, tonight, Emile and I went through all of his files and organized them. They are alphabetical order with cream legal sized folders inside hanging folders as a compromise.
April 21st, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Finding $70 in the files. It’s Saturday Night, I’m feeling alright.
The Daily EO 