Sometimes I feel like my kids need to attend "The Lottery".

As we move into prose analysis in my senior class (not that they got poetry analysis or anything), I decided that they needed to read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. My plan was to have them read the story first and answer some basic comprehension questions. After the initial reading, I would lecture on how to begin analyzing prose. Then they'd get to read the story again, answer some more detailed questions, and eventually write an essay.

Sadly, I haven't gotten through phase one of this plan yet. You see, they read the story yesterday. It took them all period to read the six pages (we didn't have books, so I printed them each a copy). Once they'd finished reading it, they didn't really understand what had happened. So I had to take today to discuss it, as well as to go ahead and explain terms like foreshadow and scapegoat. To highschool seniors.

(Note: As I have a terrible cold or sinus infection of INSERT-ILLNESS-HERE at the moment, I didn't mind so much not having to stand up and talk for 40 minutes today. Over them. With lots of yelling.)

Allow me to share with you the first reaction the story got from Queen of the Jungle (one of the first to finish reading):

QotJ: "Why'd we have to read this?! We Christian!"
Me: "... ... Christians used to stone people all the time back in the 'day.'"
QotJ: "I know! ... It's not appropriate for [Crossroads]."

A little later:

QotJ again: "Why'd that lady say it wasn't fair?"
Me: "That's one of the points of the story: illuminating hypocrisy. Violence is all fine and dandy as long as it doesn't happen to you. Then it does and you're all, 'Oh bleep no, this bleep's gotta stop!'"

I didn't actually say that last part so succinctly. However, I do actually say bleep in class because it amuses them and keeps their attention.

Today, SnoopWannabeTupac asked me if these lotteries had ever really happened. Then he and JumpyPuppy and a few others wanted to know the origin and perpetuation of stoning.

Did you know that "The Lottery" is banned in South Africa? Or that a lot of people cancelled their subscription to The New Yorker because they published the short story? Or that one recurrent thread in the countless confused, angry, or curious letters that Shirley Jackson received was the question on where people could go to see one of these lotteries?

From the Wiki article:

"In The Magic of Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote about her reaction to the banning of the story in the Union of South Africa: 'She felt that they at least understood.' In 1984, The Lottery was included among the 30 most-often banned books in American schools and libraries, as listed by Playboy (January, 1984). The books were arranged by frequency of censorship with the most-banned first, the least-banned last. At that time, The Lottery ranked #17, between Black Like Me and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."

Why I Hope Never Again to Use H&R Blockhead.

Dad and I briefly entertained the notion of doing my taxes ourselves this year. Then we realized the hilarity of the two of us, sitting at a table for hours, trying to communicate (he's hard of hearing) over arcane tax documents. Deep in the ritualistic voodoo of conjuring W-2s for foreign income, filing for an exemption from federal taxes, figuring out how document taxes for AL, and other terrifying and dark practices, blood would no doubt be spilled. We decided best not to risk it. Best to seek a tax preparer instead.

The Knight arrived on the scene at this point to point out that H&R Block was running a promotion where if you owed anything, you owe them nothing (in service fees). (Unfortunately, this chimerical offer had expired on the Knight's lengthy journey from his own kingdom.) My dad told me he'd pay whatever fees H&R Block charged if I'd just get my taxes done there.

I made an appointment for this past Monday at 1 PM, via that new-fangled appointment-maker you can use on their website. And when the appointed date and time of my ritualistic sacrifice arrived, I went promptly, bearing all relevant information: foreign income notes (in JPY and USD, spiffy), current W-2, student loan info, $25 off coupon, etc.

Just inside the door, the Knight and I immediately came upon a doddering old woman. She was slightly bent-backed, swaying behind the front counter. She smiled vacuously at me. I told her that I had an appointment. As she was currently in the midst of (what was for her) the delicate and arcane operation of filling in four fields on the computer to make an appointment for someone else, she vaguely waved me to some seats and told me she'd figure out who I was to see in-a-moment-dearie. She continued mumbling after we'd moved away.

A competent-looking woman then emerged from the back and moved in to to help the confused octogenarian. I zoned out a bit, wondering if I'd remembered all the requisite paperwork. As I looked over at my companion, I noticed a bemused and horrified expression coming over his face. I immediately started listening to what the two women at the front were talking about. With horror coming over my own visage, I turned to the Knight and murmured, "My God, she doesn't actually work here, does she?"*

Oh, she did. What the two women had been discussing was how the competent women had not had a break all day and so would be leaving. Therefore, the doddering old woman was told to take over my account and sort my taxes out for me. Before I could process that this was actually happening, the bent-backed obaasan appeared before me and beckoned us over to a cubicle.

Dear readers, I tried to stay with it. As the Knight thought, maybe this woman actually had sixty years of accounting under her belt. Maybe she truly was a tax professional as was promised to us by H&R Block. Maybe we should stop being such total assholes, judging this time-worn and travel-stained book by its eroding cover. (Dammit, I'm still an asshole.)

Then she opened her mouth and dispelled any such desperate illusions:
"How was your Christmas? Did you hide some eggs for the little babies?"

And she commenced prattling about babies and how she had no babies and maybe we didn't have any babies and wasn't it a nice time of year and etc. She did eventually wise herself up to the fact that it was Easter and not Christmas, at least.

She began entering in my personal information. I wondered how long we two trains could play chicken with each other without turning this into a MASSIVE TRAINWRECK. The Knight watched, trying to keep a straight face, aching for a piece of paper on which to scrawl "HAMLET A.1 S.4. L.45!"

It lasted until she asked for my W-2s. At that point, I uttered what to her must have sounded like a primitive scream from the bowels of some exotic hell: FOREIGN INCOME. She immediately looked like she wanted to get away as quickly as she could hobble. She fetched the competent woman who had not, in fact, left and was just sitting at a desk toward the back.

Neither of them really knew what to do. The old woman offered to try puzzling it out and the competent woman just looked like "Oh, fuck, I don't not want to put up with this bullshit today!" She called the main office and put me on the phone with them when the Indian woman over there started asking financial questions.

The woman on the phone eventually told me that she felt the H&R Block I was at could figure it out. I told her no, that I'd really rather just have an appointment at her branch (the main branch) instead. She transferred me to the receptionist and they were able to get me an appointment for Tuesday (yesterday).

I really like to have faith in the competence and sound mental faculties of my tax professional. Especially when I'm dealing with foreign income. I don't want my "tax professional" to sit there and use Tax Cut software, with me as her only resource on what forms I'm supposed to file.

Luckily, yesterday's visit was much better. As far as we can tell, everything that needs to be filled out is done. I'm exempted from paying federal taxes on my foreign income and Alabama is once more playing the Sherriff of Nottingham. I am suffering a net loss of $27 and probably some penalties for not paying on my Japanese income quarterly like I was supposed to do.

I'm glad I won't have to worry about foreign income on the next tax year. And I'm certainly glad that my taxes should be simple enough next year that I can do them my-damn-self and not have to pay $167 for H&R Block to be incompetent and only get it right on the second go-around.

*To be honest, I thought she was a senior citizen volunteer of the sort that some businesses take pity on and employ in menial tasks to give them some way to fill their time. (Not that senior citizens are in any way inherently pitiful, but this one was.)