“A fool and his money are soon parted; the rest of us wait for tax time.”

- Unknown

All right now everyone; pop quiz! (I bet you would have paid more attention if you thought I was going to throw a quiz at you, right?)

What do these things have in common: breakfast, cigarettes, sneakers, my education and Doritos?

I'm sure some of you might be guessing that these are all things that I did or used this morning, and for the most part you'd be right. (Doritos do make a good breakfast!)

But the correct answer that I was looking for here was (drum roll, please) taxes.

Oh yes, it's not just spring but it's also the tax season, as well. I've heard a saying that you never go into business with family, but, to be fair, there's nothing I love better than getting my paycheck each week and opening it up to see how much of my hard earned money is going out to my Uncle Sam.

To be honest, I have no idea what half the stuff written on the checks even mean; Gross & Net? What am I a fisherman here? If so, I want to throw this one back, for being too small.

I also have all these other little fingers in my cookie jar, as well. There's state and federal tax, then there's FICA, which sort of sounds like a cheese. I must be one of those really generous people because I never even bother to ask when they are going to pay me back for all the cash I've doled out to them so far.

And don't get me wrong, I must really love paying taxes because I do it about every hour or two during the day.

That is, sales tax. Yes sir, you can't spend a dime without the government wanting a nickel of it.

And it's never enough, ever. It's as though the IRS are more like Oliver Twist asking for “more please.”

Yeah, they get you when you are born and of course they will follow you when you die, why else would there be a death tax?

Everyone knows you can't get blood from a stone but leave it to the ones in charge to get cash from a casket.

I know, I know, our taxes go to keep the government running smoothly. Well, have you looked at the government lately? Maybe this is a problem we shouldn't be throwing money at to try and solve. And the real kicker is that this year we're all getting rebate checks!

That's like putting gas into the car, picking up a pretty girl, going to a fancy restaurant, then a movie, and then going for drinks, only to get a peck on the cheek as you walk her to her door. Sure it was money well spent but, the return on the investment was, what can I say; less than a stimulus package if you know what I'm talking about.

At least that's what the government is calling it anyway.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday, in The Citizen.

He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com