I, an innocent taxpayer, was sitting in the park filling out my 1040 like any patriotic citizen. Somehow nothing makes me get in the mood for taxes more than getting out and seeing the nature, the trees, the crackheads…

A man came down and sat next to me. No problem, right? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of men before… well, I’M a man! Phew. This heat is getting to me. After mopping my brow with the large pile of eraser shavings by my feet, I continue to feverishly enter numbers into this devilish form.

The man beside me cleared his throat.

I filled out some numbers.

The man beside me cleared his throat. I don’t know WHAT he ate for breakfast.

The man beside me cleared his throat.

By this time I figured he wanted my attention. Besides, his hobby might be helping people fill out tax forms!

“Hello,” I turned to him with a weak grin.

“Hello,” he announces, obviously pleased that I recognized him. “Do you know who I am?”

Well… he did look familiar, didn’t he? Shoot…. I’d seen him on some posters somewhere… what kind of people do you see on posters, models, right? But this was a MAN. Uh oh. I’m not sexist or anything, but I’ve always dreaded the day when a male model wanted my attention. Keep cool, I intoned to myself. You’ll be fine.

“Oh I know! You’re that male fashion model!” was my polite rejoinder.

He stared at me. His stare could pierce glass. It could freeze fire. It could… convince men to join the army!

I was getting the feeling I had ticked off the wrong person. He pointed a gnarled finger at me.

“I want YOU to stop joking with me! You’ve been doing nothing but avoiding me for all these years! Tax evasion! Evasion! Espionage! Potato laundering!”

“Potato? Evasion? Spies? You? And I demand an answer to all four of those questions, mistar!”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And you’d better not bother me anymore! IN OTHER NEWS, the reason I came here was to tell you that you forgot to disclose that dollar you just found on the ground!”

“This is too ridiculous, Sammy… hey you want a dollar by any chance?”

At this point he took out a set of paintbrushes and pastels. He began to paint an elaborate picture. When he was done, he presented me with it. It looked a little like this:

It was really nice writing, really. I couldn’t resist anymore. My life was so important. I could live for eighty more years (or even more, but with my mental state…), taxes weren’t so bad… the pressure was getting to me… pressure… grrr.

“TAXES!!!!!!!” I shouted out to everyone and nobody at the same time.

I opened my eyes. Nearly everyone in the park was staring at me.

“I know, buddy, the pressure gets to me too,” a young man stated as he patted me on the back.

I turned around. AH! Another fashion model!