April letters to Jim

I trust everyone enjoyed their Easter break and are still struggling to rid their bodies from its dependency on jelly beans and marshmallow filled chocolate eggs. Another month has passed so I bring you more letters to myself.

Dear Jim,
Tax day is almost here. Have you any great suggestions about how to minimize the pain of having to pay taxes? What do you do that helps you get money back from Uncle Sam?

Death and taxes are two certainties in life. However, while paying taxes does not allow you to avoid death, dying does help you avoid paying taxes. With that in mind, if you are in over your head, you can always opt out of life although you might miss out on some swell “must have” electronic gadgets in the near future.

Personally, I prefer the American way which involves cheating as much as I can. Why should I pay the government taxes if they can’t fix a damn pothole in my town? Besides, how do you think the top one percent got to where they are today? It wasn’t from paying taxes, that’s for sure.

This year, I claimed my dogs, all five of them, as dependent children. Obedience school, vet care, and licensing all add up so I deduct their costs. I also deduct their clothing because it gets cold in the Winter.

Another deduction I take is the cost of lost energy. Where I live, we have rolling power outages on high energy usage days. Sometimes this means I go without any electricity which means I sweat a lot resulting in more clothes needing to be washed. I deduct this cost each time it happens. I also charge the state $20.00 for every clock I have to reprogram once the electricity comes back on.

Finally, I deduct the cost of my alcohol usage since I only drink for medicinal reasons. This makes my beer and my wife’s wine deductible because it is part of our health needs, but not covered by insurance.

Dear Jim,
They are sure making a big deal about the return of Tiger Woods at this years Masters. What are the odds he wins it this year?

I don’t gamble so all I can tell you is what I think will happen since at the time of writing this, Tiger is playing the first round. Many people are picking him to win which is adding to the excitement of his return. I am not one of those simply because I want him to win. You see, if I pick him to win, he most likely misses the cut. By not picking him, he is liable to make me look like a horrible prognosticator and win it all. Go Tiger!

Dear Jim,
The president is now saying he wants to use the National Guard to protect our border and have the military pay the cost for constructing a new wall? Are these good ideas? Will they work?

I have said it many times before, I would prefer to see our military protect our border rather than the border of some dump half way around the world. It might result in some soldiers dropping dead from boredom, but I will take that over roadside bombs and sniper fire any day.

As for the wall, why build one with any U.S. money when Mexico is going to pay for it, right? Perhaps it would be cheaper and much faster if Trump built the wall out of the mountains of legal paper work his lawyers are creating to defend him from Stormy Daniels?

Maybe we can build a wall out of all the cars we won’t be sending to China thanks to tariffs. We can also can make one out of all the old backpacks that will be useless as schools switch to clear ones. Fill them up with sand and stack them. Better still, why not just line up all the men and women who have left Trump’s team and have them hold hands across the border and yell at people as they approach?

Dear Jim,
Your picture on the Los Angeles Post-Examiner web site makes it difficult to tell what you look like? Is this by design? Are you as repulsive to look at as you are to read? Is there a celebrity you tend to look like?

I can assure you, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some actually find me attractive to look at only to lose their lunch when they read what I write about. As far as celebrities, I would say I am a cross between Robert De Niro and Pee-Wee Herman. If I wear a dress, I am about as close to being a dead ringer for Bea Arthur as there ever was.

Dear Jim,
With the mid-term elections coming in just seven months, it looks like Trump has begun to turn things around enough to where the GOP might not loose both houses of Congress. Does this worry you?

Not at all. Trump has already proven himself in my eyes. He has shown in less than 18 months’ time he can’t work with his own party when they are in complete control of government.  I am pretty sure, no matter what the numbers are in both houses, Trump will find a way to continue this trend.

Here is what worries me the most. His approval ratings have risen to just over 40 percent. That alone should tell you what opioids do to a person’s thought process. Since we know mostly white middle age men support Trump and this is the same demographic overdosing in droves, it makes me realize if we can solve the opioid crisis, we will also get rid of the Mar A Lago man in the Oval Office.

Dear Jim,
I have noticed there has been a lot of hate posted on the internet toward the Florida teens driving the gun debate in our country. How do you feel about conservatives who go so far as to make up stuff that is not true about these kids who should be congratulated for what they are doing?

If you can’t stand the heat, get back into the classroom. Have you ever heard how teens talk about one another? Do you not remember when you were a teen you spent a great deal of time ripping on your peers and making them feel like crap to the point where they want to shoot up a school?

Laura Ingram and others do not stand a chance against these kids. She might want to take her own advice and just shut up and dribble because she is in way over her head when it comes to getting into a battle of wits with this angry, smart, and motivated bunch.

The real snowflakes are those who sit in front of a camera or behind a mic every day and spew the nonsense they try to pass off as intellect to a base of fans who don’t know what to think unless they are told by someone with a name like Sean, Rush, or Laura. These media hacks are living proof you do not have to know squat to own a gun.

You think middle aged conservatives are pissed at these kids for wanting to take their guns, wait until they control the vote. They’ll change more than just gun laws.

Dear Jim,
Recently, Craig’s List got rid of its Personals section because the site was often used to promote the sex slave industry. Should they be applauded for their action or hated for what the section morphed into?

First, let me just say I was deeply saddened to see this section disappear. Where else could a person turn to see some of the ugliest naked photos ever taken without having to pay for the site? If you are on a tight budget like me, you relied on it. However, the sex slave industry is nothing to laugh at, unlike many of the photos people posted. It’s just unfortunate it took a congressional bill to cause all this to happen. Since its disappearance, I am no longer able to tell my wife I am job searching nearly as much as I use to. Maybe there is something worth looking at on Angie’s List.