Paperwork: The Office Word for Satan

Ever since I was in second grade I learned what paperwork really meant: busy work. When I was 7, paperwork was what your teacher gave you to do in class when she just needed five. More. Minutes. Of quiet (I totally get that now, btw). It was typically a maze or a multiplication table with rabbits on it or some bullshit, but you know what, I knew it was not really pertinent to my long term education.

I still feel that way about paperwork. It’s just fucking busy work and I cannot seem to get my brain to process it as anything important, no matter how hard I try. It’s why a lot of important government forms are filled out wrong (or not at all) or why I never file them to begin with.

This is how I envision any job that involves paperwork.

The other reason I fear paperwork more than I fear being attacked by a ravenous swarm of African bees that just had their hive invaded by a nastyass honey badger (thanks, Moira) is because most paperwork contains text that I just don’t understand. And I fear the unknown. Especially if it’s the thing I’m supposed to be really, really good at, yet, I still can’t decipher the writing.

My fear of paperwork is the reason my last name is still legally Yaker.

I forgot to check the box on my divorce decree that gave me back my maiden name Tidd. Yeah. I missed the most important fucking box on my divorce paperwork because I was panicking about filling it out wrong.

I found this out when expediting a passport to go to the Bahamas as a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding. Yeah, I hate passport paperwork so much, I left it off to the very last second too.

Now my last name is still Yaker because I have to fill out about 6,439 forms and go to court to legally change my name back to Tidd (which WILL happen eventually) and the thought of fucking up one of those forms so badly that the US government declares me dead looms ever present on my mind.

I pay way too much every year for Turbo Tax to make taxes easy for me to understand because reading a 1040-EZ makes me break out in hives and want to ride the hide from a living Buffalo.

Paperwork is one of the barriers of entry to me becoming a full-fledged self-employed person. All the new and scary taxes I’ll have to do. What if I decide to start an LLC, for the love of all that’s holy?! Dear heavenly somethingorother, the paperwork will never end and I’ll never understand it even if it does.

Before the entire internet gets their panties in a wad, yes, I’m talking to accountants. This will happen. I’ll just have to take a fucking Xanax before I meet with them. I don’t want to flip out and start tearing up tax forms during the meeting and, to be honest, I’d rather not remember it. Let my beautiful, angelic accountant remember everything. Just let me do what I do well and write.

But here are a list of the things I’m afraid of happening once I get tits deep in paperwork:

• The government decides that I need to pay 100% of my earnings and I get evicted from my apartment.
• I forget to check a box and owe $100,000.
• I accidentally list my dog as a business partner and then have to do taxes for him as well.
• I cry uncontrollably for 3 days (there’s a good chance of this happening).

You see?! So much shit can go wrong when you do paperwork. And don’t tell me I’m crazy, I already fucking know this.