Paranoia

I'm sorting through my receipts and papers from 2004, preparing for Friday's IRS audit.  (I hate to admit I watched Larry the Cable Guy last night, and there's a trailer for the Blue Collar Comics who go to visit the president in D.C. and a Bush look-alike threatens them, "I'm going to make the IRS very interested in you!"). 

I realized I had spent a month in Colombia that year and I still make frequent calls to Colombia. 

I also lost my job teaching high school at Shiloh that year. 

Of course, they never would say I lost my job because of an unpopular political stand, although the shop teacher whispered to me back then, "You're really brave," simply because I had a "NO WAR IN IRAQ" sign in my car, the principal took me to her office at least three times to ask me never to mention the war, and they had regular day-long visits from the Marines, who provided inflatable toys in the gym and gave away key chains and t-shirts and made presentations -- they were a fun bunch, walking down the hall with their arms over the senior boys' shoulders.  I, on the other hand, discouraged such thoughts with those impoverished male students who thought they should join the service in order to be able to afford to go to college.  There was no other way, they said.  I told them I'd make sure they went to college, there was always another way, and told them to steer clear of the armed services.

So, I can't help thinking this audit is as much Homeland Security as it is the IRS. I don't want to be paranoid.  But I can't seem to convince myself that this is, as the very nice good cop revenue agent claims, strictly random.

I'm thinking of videotaping his visit for a YouTube video.

--
"All my books are botches." -- Herman Melville