Yawn! Stretch!

Primary research material, also known as stuff I've stacked on a chair

The end of tax season in an accountant's house is like the end of hibernation season in a bear's cave. On April 16 (or April 19, thank you very much Uncle Sam) we end the three months during which Husband spends every waking hour probing the depths of the tax code and I spend every waking hour...well, I'm not sure what I do during tax season but it isn't anything adult or responsible.

We stumble out the front door, yawning and stretching and blinking and thinking primitive thoughts.

"Oooh, too bright!"

"Big round ball in sky!"

"What green fuzzy ground stuff is?"

Eventually we wake up and return to human thoughts that don't include deductions and extensions (which, in my case, refer to the hairstyles of the Real Housewives who have been part of the junk television watching cultural anthropology investigation I've been doing). And eventually we look behind us, and in my case, shriek in horror.

There, inside The House at the Corner of Drainage Street and Halfway Down the Hill, is the human equivalent of a hibernation's worth of old bones and cast-off fur. Newspapers stacked on chairs. Dust bunnies on steroids. Dried leaves scattered around the philodendrons that have clung to life through the long winter.

Complicating the chaos is an appointment I made during the days when I assumed tax season would never end. The House is something of a character in itself. It was built in 1927 by one of Small College's most notorious faculty members (Really! He testified at the Monkey Trial!) and a couple of months ago a history professor called to ask if a research class could interview us about The House's past.

"Sure!" I told him breezily. "We can do that as soon as Husband has a little free time."

So that would be today, and they'll be here in five hours, and I'm still decompressing from the last thrilling Cupcake Wars duel.

I'd better get busy scooping out bones and fur. Tax season is over.