BECAUSE IT'S TAX TIME

April is a time for filing income taxes, so I thought the following personal article might be appropriate.  Receipts can be revealing.  What do yours say about you?  Enjoy!

DISCLOSURE

                        As a bookkeeper for more than forty years, I learned to read people by the receipts they kept for business.  My penchant for deciphering numbers in fine print told me far more than just the financial cost of an item or service.

            I could tell there were two guests in a hotel room when a businessman was out of town, on business, without his wife.  I knew a businesswoman bought ten bottles of vodka for one dinner for four that she hosted back in December.  I knew when he sent his wife flowers, or when she took her husband golfing.  I knew where they banked and how much they earned.  I knew what their medical premiums cost and where they had RRSPs.  I could tell what vehicles they drove, whether they were purchased or leased, and when their insurance expired.  I knew if he had disability insurance or if she had life insurance.  I knew what school their children attended and the colour of the uniform for the basketball team they sponsored.  And I learned where the whole family vacationed each year.

            So what did my receipts say about me?  The top drawer of my filing cabinet was overflowing, so I pulled out one file folder that was bulging, entitled “Personal Receipts”.  It had been collecting items for many years.  I spent an hour sorting my memories, keeping some and discarding others.

            I’d been searching for a diagram I knew I saved that showed the assembly of an oscillating fan.  I wanted to take the fan apart and clean it.  “Destructions” come in handy.  The fan was probably twenty years old but I still had the diagram in my personal receipt file.

            What other details of my life were evident on paper?  I found picture I.D. of myself that had been issued by the provincial government before drivers’ licences included pictures.  The I.D. had been required to prove I wasn’t a minor when I purchased alcohol.  This laminated piece of identification was from 1970.

            There was a hospital registration card for my daughter from Vancouver Children’s Hospital for when she had open heart surgery in 1984 at the age of five.  When she turned sixteen, I gave her a birthstone ring.  I saw the receipt from the local jeweller.  And later there were receipts from her two driving tests; the one she failed and the one she passed.  From Champagne & Lace I had the receipt for her grad dress.  All of these were proof she lived and grew up.

            For my son, I found outdated vehicle registrations and vehicle insurance papers.   When he graduated as a second lieutenant from the Royal Military College in Kingston, I bought him a silver pocket watch and a silver flask, both engraved with his name and both for him to use with his dress uniform.  I had the receipts.

            I kept airline tickets to my son’s graduation and my daughter’s wedding.  There were also tickets to Winnipeg one February so I could visit my son and daughter-in-law at C.F.B. Shilo.  I remember the temperature was minus forty degrees Celsius the whole five days of my visit!

            I had receipts for my ancient chesterfield suite and VCR, both of which were still in use.  There were receipts for cameras that have since died and for all the repairs to a washing machine we later replaced.  I had detailed instructions for care of a box spring and mattress I bought for my daughter.

            In the file were all the vet bills for our since departed cat.  And I had the receipt for the large print bible I gave my mother-in-law for her birthday one year.

            Since the late 1980s, I had saved receipts every time I renewed my disabled parking permit.  My fold-up cane cost me $29.99, and my designer cane cost me $49.99.  My wheeled walker with brakes and basket cost $200.00, used.  No warranty.

            In 1996, my son bought one new tire for my car, for $129.95 at Canadian Tire.  I subscribed to Reader’s Digest for five years in a row, and to Storyteller Magazine for two years.

 
            The television in the living room came from Visions, a wedding present from my mother.  My driving glasses were two for the price of one.  My largest expenditures on clothing were always at the fabric store, some assembly required.  The Corelle dishes in the kitchen came from Walmart.  Wedding presents for the kids, pots and pans with twenty-five year warranties for both my son and daughter, came from Sears and so did my Kenmore stove.  There was also the receipt for the marriage licence when Bryon and I got married.

            Ah, yes.  There is revelation by receipt.  Can you read me now?

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By Lisa A. Hatton