I May Have Purchased a Rocket-powered Motorcycle In My Sleep

Today is the most stressful financial day of the year for me — RRSP day. For those of you in the readership from outside of Canada, RRSPs — Registered Retirement Savings Plans — are tax-sheltered retirement investments that we Canadians can may each year. Basically we can each take a defined chunk of our income, place it in a special type of investment, and thus exempt ourselves from paying tax on the chunk in the current year; when we retire, the money comes out of the investment and we pay tax on it then, but by then we are in a lower tax bracket.

And we have until the last day of February to make the arrangements to do this each year.

And of course, given my laissez faire attitude towards my finances, I always wait until the last day in February to make the required arrangements.

The stress comes because the actual amount that [[Catherine]] and I are each permitted to invest is sent to us by Revenue Canada on the previous year’s “Notice of Assessment,” a piece of paper we are mailed once our previous year’s tax return is processed.

So to be effective today required locating those two pieces of paper, sent to us mid-2005. In a sea of other as-yet-unfiled paperwork stretching back quite a while.

Then [[Oliver]] and [[Catherine]] and I had to drive up to [[Metro Credit Union]] where we received characteristically good and stress-free service to complete the deal.

Did I mention that I hate scrounging for paperwork? I was sending out so much negative energy, that [[Johnny]] shouted over to make sure I wasn’t having a nervous breakdown.

Anyway, it all worked out in the end. And in the process of sorting through my multi-year pile of un-filed miscellany I found what appears to be an instruction sheet for a rocket-powered motorcycle that I have no recollection of actually having acquired:

If you were with me when I purchased same, please let me know.