A day in the life of a registered senior citizen...

A registered senior citizen on the phone...

By Jim Heffernan

Well, the Internal Revenue Service called again and, boy, am I ever in deep doo-doo. They said I owe all kinds of more taxes and I’d better pay up by sundown or the fuzz will come and pick me up and throw me in the hoosegow. 

So I guess this will have to be sort of a goodbye, because I can’t come up with that kind of moolah by the end of the day. Now I’m waiting for the house to be surrounded by IRS or FBI agents wielding rifles and a bullhorn ordering me to surrender. Can tear gas be far behind?

I do wonder what the neighbors will think, although most of them won’t be surprised. But I can’t think about that now because the phone just rang again.

“Hello, Grandpa?” Holy smokes, I’m thinking it must be one of my grandchildren calling. “Is this Jason?” I asked, alarmed.

 “Yeah, it’s Jason,” the lad responded quickly. “I’m in jail and I haven’t got any money. I need you to bail me out, grandpa.”

Well, I told him I was waiting for the Internal Revenue Service to surround our house but I’d try to help him out in the meantime. I didn’t think he’d need as much as the IRS. “How much do you need, and where are you in jail?”

He said he’d need as much as I could muster because he was behind bars in Istanbul, Turkey, where we all know they don’t treat prisoners with kid gloves. I told him I’d see what I could do and that he should call back in half an hour.

Then, bing goes the phone again. It was a very nice lady with a distinct foreign accent kindly calling to inform me that I must immediately go to my computer and do certain stuff or the computer will be rendered useless forever. Of course they’ll need my Social Security number to verify my identity. Can’t blame them there.

But before I could say Jack Robinson, the phone indicated another call was coming in. I took it. It was Jason calling back about the bail money.

I had to tell him I just remembered I don’t have any grandson named Jason, which resulted in the phone suddenly going dead on the other end of the line. No click or anything. Just dead. Must be the Turkish phone system.

When the IRS agents didn’t show up by sundown, I figured they were busy at the house of some other geezer who owes them even more. As far as the computer is concerned, it didn’t go kaput at all like the lady with the accent said it would. I just typed all this on it, for crying out loud.

Jeepers, it makes you wonder if all these people could be trying to steal money from me.