But what if...

I don't know how or why we let it happen, but last night we had a visit from a life insurance saleswoman.

She must have weighed 300 pounds easy, and was as intense a woman as I've ever met. No friend of the soft-sell, Frau Elke stayed with us for over two hours, at one point stooping to the worst-case scenario pitch.

To any of our reservations, however slight, Frau Elke would put things into perspective for us:

"But Frau Curtiss, what happens if your husband pokes his eye out? How will he be able to write or teach if he's blind? Who will pay for his glass eye? Who will do the shopping?"

or

"But Herr Curtiss, what happens if you both get into a car accident and have to have your legs removed? Who will pay for your wheelchairs? How will you teach? How will you do research with no legs?"

Finally, after entertaining thoughts of the nastier side of life, I said, "Ok, ok, enough with the worst-case scenarios."

"But Herr Curtiss," she replied, "I'm serious. What happens if you break your hands, for example, how will you write?"

Oh, she was relentless.

I was proud for awhile that I listened to her the whole time, but then remembered I didn't actually manage it: when she was talking her nonsense, I was mentally picturing positive things happening so she didn't get her dirty negativity into our chakras.

Ok, I don't know the first thing about chakras.

But I do believe that speaking about negativity breeds negativity, just as speaking about positivity breeds positivity.

Thus, as I wrote that last paragraph, I thought of a perfect comeback to her many terrible scenarios:

"And you, Frau Elke, what happens if you break our stool and fall on your healthy butt? Are you insured for that?"

But come to think of it, she probably was.

Yeah, I'm the Tax Man

Strangest thing happened to me today.

I was working away at the computer when the doorbell rang, so I shluffed to the front door in my slippers and pressed the intercom.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Curtiss? I'm from the tax bureau."

"Sorry?"

"I'm from the tax bureau."

"Uh... Ok. I'll be right down."

What the hell is this all about, I wondered as I walked downstairs.

I opened up the front door and standing there trying to look tough was a muscled kid, tanning booth brown, about 30 years old.

I puffed up my chest. "Yeah?"

He was holding a huge leather case like the airline pilots have to carry, which allowed his arm to be continuously flexed.

"Mr. Curtiss, I'm from the tax office and blah, blah, blah, blah."

"Uh... I'm sorry, I don't understand."

He gave me that look – the one where he clocked me as a foreigner – and then he handed me an official-looking document from the tax bureau.

"Can you read German," he sniped.

"Yes, of course." I read over the official-looking document and didn't understand a word of it.

I handed the paper back to him.

"Yeah, and?"

"You must pay this money, plus a penalty. Do you have it?"

"Wait. I have to pay you right now?"

"That's right."

"And you're with the tax bureau?"

"Yes."

"Do you have identification?"

He sighed deeply, obviously peeved at this, but hey – should I pay every random guy claiming to be the taxman who comes to my house? I don't think so. Most unusual, this visit.

His ID seemed legit, so I asked him, "I have to pay you how much? And why?"

"Forty Euro. For your taxes.

"Pardon?"

"For your taxes. Do you have it?"

"Uh... I don't know..."

"That would be bad if you don't."

"Uh-huh."

I still didn't understand the situation fully, but he was legit so I invited him in.

"So this is all about my taxes," I asked as we walked upstairs.

"Yes."

'But I paid my taxes last month."

"Yes, but not all."

"Uh-huh. You have documents for this?"

"Yes."

We got in the flat and I led him into our living room – and then I remembered that it looked like a clothes and paper bomb went off in there. Jarmila overhauled our bedroom on Sunday and the spillover made its way to a pile by my desk. A pile of shirts awaits someone to give them ironing attention. My desk is littered with papers. There are dozens of CDs by the player. Our laundry was drying on the rack. Dead flies languish on the floor awaiting the Hoover Treatment.

We sat down at the rotunda table and I tried to make sense of the situation.

"Ok, now could you tell me again what's happening here?"

He took out a file and showed me that I hadn't, apparently, paid all of my taxes for the first quarter of the year. I'm scheduled to pay a certain amount by a certain date and I missed the deadline by a day. Two days after I had paid my taxes in full (a significant amount, mind you), a letter arrived saying that I owed this full amount plus a 40 Euro penalty.

Being me, and since I had already paid, I threw the letter in the garbage.

And since I received no follow-up letter, I thought the issue was dead.

But here was Mr. Savage Tan come to collect these 40 Euro (50USD).

As it began to fully dawn on me that he was some thug from the collection agency, and since I knew I had the money, I asked him what would happen if I didn't have the money.

He said a word I didn't understand, so I asked him to write it down.

"Pfändung" was the word.

I ran for my dictionary and looked it up.

"Seizure" was the translation.

I looked up at him.

"So I don't pay you now, and what – you take my television?"

"For example," he shrugged, looking around in a what-else-they-got kinda way.

I blinked at him.

"That's unbelievable," I said, shaking my head, both amused and scandalized.

And so I paid him the 40 Euro penalty, he gave me a receipt, and I walked him downstairs.

If there's a moral to the story, I'd say it would have to be: don't fuck around with the German Tax Bureau. They know where you live.