LEFT AFTER TAXES

LAST LAUGH

No Deficit At Home

By Patricia Penton Leimbach

"Hey make up a list of what you earned last year," hollers my husband from the next room, where he's wind ing up his six weeks' dalliance with income tax forms. Well, let's see. What did I earn last year? A skilled homemaker should be worth at least $3 an hour, and she invests about 12 hours a day. Of course, I wasn't here every day and Sundays were light. Say 300 days at $36 a day. That's $10,800 to start with. And then a farmer's wife has "hired man" tasks to lengthen most of her days. I went to work with my thinker and my eigth-grade math and I drew up my list.

I laid it on the bookkeeper's desk and left. In a calculated few moments, there was a roar. "That's not what I wanted!"

"But you asked me what I earned. I thought my estimate was conservative, considering my education and experience."

"Would you please make me up a list of what you actually got," he said in exasperation.

"Ohhh...what I actually got ...Well, that's something else..."

Much later I slipped in and laid my second list on his desk:

Payment Received for Services Rendered:

Sunrise over the valley about 300 times (No failure with the sun. I was absent a few times)

Sunset over Scmaltz's barn

A picture frame of barn siding

Picnics in the pasture

Two dogs working a woodchuck hole

Rain coming across the potatoes in August

New peas on counter, June 10

Sweet corn on counter, July 10

New potatoes on counter, August 10

A banana cream pie (from scratch) from a son on Sunday morning

Swamp buttercups in May

Rural free delivery

An oriole in the pear tree

Hot buttered rum by a hearthfire in a blizzard

A wrought-iron kettle restored by a son

Lunch alone with my honey on weekdays

Sons coming into supper from working with their father

A golden ginkgo tree in October

Little kids in leaf piles

Impromptu visits with neighbors

A chipmunk on the back steps

One perfect coal bin full of wood, coal and a neat stack of kindling (Beautiful!!)

Walking down the road on a starry night

Bare branches against the moon on a winter sky

Wheat emerging under snow

More love, support, concrete assistance, and encouragement than I deserve

Total value: Incalculable

And to it I affixed the following note:

I found it impossible to assign a value to these things, and I suppose it's just as well. If the IRS figures a way to tax our real wealth, we'll be bankrupt. No matter how you slice it, "Payment Received" exceeds "Amount Earned."