I finally finished my income tax return last night. I can hear you inching closer to your monitors exclaiming, “Ooh!” and “Aah!” Yeah, not very exciting. But give the story a chance to develop, why don’t-cha?

I’ve been stressing about this, because now I’m finally able to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and apply for plush government money to go to law school. And now, with my tax return complete, I expect to get the shaft from Uncle Sam.

The first thing the FAFSA wants to know about me, aside from such personal information as how long I’ve been a resident of Delaware, which I’m forced to admit is six years (I became a resident during college trying to get a tuition break to no avail), is how much money I earned last year. The problem is that I made a rather obscene amount of money last year, mainly because I was collecting severance after being laid off of Job 1, after being hired by Job 2.

That translates to my earning 16 months of pay in a 12-month span. Yeah. If I weren’t counting on getting some free tax cash from the government, I’d be dancing in the motherfucking streets. Unfortunately for me, there’s no space to indicate this one-time anomaly on the form. Fantastic.

Next problem: Even though my tax return indicates that I’m a multi-billionaire (as long as we’re exaggerating here…) there’s no little box to fill in stating that my income will surely plummet to zero, after I quit my job to go to law school full time. Crap.

Now that my application will undoubtedly be rejected for apparent lack of need, and passed around the Department of Education mistaken as a prank by the civil servant slugs, I’m told I’ll have to contact each school’s Financial Aid office individually and explain the special circumstances surrounding my application: mainly the artificially inflated income, and the lack of any financial support come Fall.

Maybe then, I’ll be able to get some of that fat cash. One can dream.

Speaking of financial matters, I made a bold move late last week. I took the wad of cash that was currently sitting around in my bank account and used it to pay off credit cards. That’s right, peeps! I’m officially debt free. I owe no one! It’s an amazing feeling knowing that my money is now my own.

At least for the next few months, when I’ll need to borrow close to a hundred thousand dollars over the next three years for school. But at least, I’ll have the pleasure of knowing that I was once free of all monetary debt and obligation.

I kind of wish I had done this back in December so I could proclaim that I was “Debt Free in ’03!” That would be pretty snappy. “Debt Free in ‘04” doesn’t have any rhyming scheme whatsoever.

So to recap: I owe no money. The IRS thinks I made fat stacks of cash last year. They probably won’t fork over a dime for my continued education.

God Bless America.

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