Interview

Here's the directions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the
questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview
someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask
them five questions.


1. You have taken on the brave, brave job of being a tax professional. What is the one piece of advice you offer to each and every one of your clients?

Because financial situations vary so much there isn't really one piece of advice that everyone needs. Although, if I had to pick one thing to tell everyone, it would either be "Don't be scared of the IRS." or "Save money for retirement."

2. Tell us a funny story about Donny, the funniest you can remember that makes you laugh every time you think about it.

This one was harder than I would have thought. Apparently I'm not good at coming up with stories on the spot. But there is one that I loved to give Donny a hard time about.

At one point in time Donny and I owned an old, beat-up work truck. The kind of truck where you're not surprised to see that the steering wheel is held together by duct tape. The kind of truck that you would have no problems taking it anywhere, because by the looks of it you can tell it's been to worse places than where you're headed. The kind of truck that you'll use for any job, because there's no way that you could be doing any worse to the truck than what's been done to it before. And her name was Betsy.

Donny was proud of Betsy, and wanted to be sure that we took good care of her. One of the things that he was fanatical about was checking her oil. Since before we owned her she had been leaking oil, so Donny made sure to check the level often. Donny and his best friend Robbie would go out and warm Betsy up, and then lovingly check her fluids. It was a holy rite of bonding to them. The problem was that I was actually trained by mechanics in how to properly maintain a vehicle, and I knew that the oil should never be checked warm. The engine needs to be either hot or cold, but not warm. If the engines warm you'll get a low reading. So the men would warm Betsy up, get a false low reading on her oil, and then add oil. I tried to tell them that they were doing it wrong, but what does a girl know?

There came the day that I realized that Betsy needed an oil change. I waited until I knew that Donny wouldn't feel like doing it, and then I mentioned it and offered to take betsy to the mechanic. Because of my superb timing, Donny allowed me to have the mechanic work on Betsy. When I went back to pick her up I had Donny with me. The mechanic came over and mentioned that they had added 6 quarts of oil and it still wasn't registering on the dipstick, so we may need a new dipstick. Donny never should have let me hear that.

It wasn't much after the oil change that the guys decide to go out and check my oil, since it's got that leak. I mentioned the problem with the dipstick and nicely suggested that maybe Betsy didn't really need any oil. They very nicely suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about and should let them get back to their "man work." A few weeks of the same scene being repeated and I was fed up. I finally told Donny that the only thing wrong with my truck was that he kept putting too much oil in her. I also let him know that the oil on the ground was not from a leak, but from Betsy trying valiantly to get ris of the excess oil that he kept giving her. Because of the tone that i took, Donny got rather upset with me. He saidthat he'd quit putting oil in Betsy, but that when I killed her in a couple of weeks trying to drive her with no oil that he had no way to fix or replace her, and it would be my problem. About 2 years later we traded Betsy in on the car that I have now, and I was still teasing Donny about the oil.

3. If you could live anywhere in the world, no financial limitations, where would you choose?

I thought about Arkansas, since my sister and her kids llive there. And I thought about Washington, since Donny's kids and grandkids live there. But I like where I am. And then it dawned on me, no financial limitations. So, I would buy lots of property here and build homes for all my loved ones.

4. Barbie or Skipper, and, why?

I was never into either one. By the time I was old enough to enjoy Barbies my sister had decided that she was too old for them, so naturally I decided that I was too old for them. I can remember my best friend wanting to play Barbie and getting frustrated because I thought that was for babies.

5. Did you have an imaginary friend as a child? If so, who was it? If not, what was your favorite plaything?

I never really had an imaginary friend, but I had an imaginary world. When we were little my dad used to tell my sister and I that "Only boring people get bored." I took that to heart and became one of the easiest kids to entertain of all time. I didn't need toys and playthings, I had my head. (Don't get me wrong, I still liked toys, I just didn't need them to entertain myself.)