Oh sure, I used to do my own taxes--back when my only dependent was myself, my one asset was a 12-inch black-and-white television, and my only income was a job that paid slightly better than donating spit.

To make the task a little easier, I picked up a copy of Thumbalina Software’s ThumTax, the program that "makes doing your taxes as easy as open-heart surgery." The program wasn’t too expensive, costing only $39.95 on the street (it would have been $10 more in a store). When I added the Standard ThumTax Supplement, the California ThumTax Supplement, and the Avoid Going to Jail ThumTax Supplement, I was still paying less than the cost of several assault rifles and a cabin in the Montana hills.

So I brought ThumTax home and eagerly installed it. The program started off with an "interview," asking me an endless series of questions and somehow suspecting that I would have the answers. Actually, some were relatively easy to answer, such as "What is your name?" But others took serious preparation and research, such as "Do you have any dependents other than yourself, your spouse, your children, your spouse’s children, your spouse’s children’s children, the neighbor’s cat, and that dead-beat uncle (if you’re unsure, click the third untitled button for a six-page explanation)?"

After asking more questions than a prospective lover, ThumTax let me pick my filing status, giving me a list of options--single, married filing joint, married filing separate, married filing for divorce, head of household, rear of kitchen--and a recommendation: destitute.

The fun really began, however, when the program stopped asking me about myself and turned to the subject of money. It was easy enough to tell it how much I’d made from PC World and Computer Currents; both publications had been good enough to supply me with tiny, easy-to-lose pieces of paper with the magic numbers on them. But I had to admit I was stumped when ThumTax asked me "How much money did you make in 1996 from renting out your pasture?"

So I did what I always do in these situations: I called my ex-wife. She wasn’t home, but I left a message on her answering machine. "Hi. It’s me. Did we make any money last year from renting out our pasture?" Since I didn’t yet have an answer, I skipped that question, figuring out I could go back to it later. I know, I know--I’ve used software way too long to be that trusting.

ThumTax probed on. Had I used my car for business purposes? Well, yes, once in October I drove to the corner store to buy a case of printer paper. Seems like I should be able to deduct the miles for that--hey, anything for a deduction. I clicked "Yes," and soon I was answering questions about the make of the car, the year I bought it, what percentage of my use was for business purposes, how much it’s been depreciated, and whether I wanted to deduct actual or standard mileage. After examining eight different pop-up help menus, I concluded that an actual mile wears out the car a good deal faster, and that a car doesn’t depreciate much on a trip to the corner store.

About that time, my ex-wife returned my call. We never owned a pasture. I thanked her, hung up, and clicked the "Go To Topic" button. Nothing about pastures. I clicked the "Odd Bits of Income You Didn’t Know Were Taxable" option, and found a long explanation on how to differentiate form 1099-MISC from an eviction notice. I pressed the Enter key and was back in the interview, answering questions I’d already answered, although my earlier entries weren’t on the screen.

Cursing both the IRS and Thumbalina Software, I re-entered my early answers to such questions as "Did you make a profit last year smuggling guns in from Canada?" and "How much did you make in 1996 writing a humor column?" And this time, I put in a 0 for the pasture question, which ThumTax immediately rejected, forcing me to type $0.00.

When I finally clawed my way to the finish, a feeling of intense elation and relief washed over me, lasting a full three seconds before I saw how much I owed. ThumTax, working with the sort of logic that befits an IRS-approved program, assumed that since I’d filled in the "Odd Bits of Income You Didn’t Know Were Taxable" section twice, I naturally had received twice the money. And no, it wasn’t going to allow me to correct the problem.

My only hope was to print out all of the forms, find an old bottle of white-out, and make the corrections manually. "You are attempting to print from the Planning Edition of ThumTax," the program countered. "In order to print out and mail your forms, you will need the Final Edition, due in store April 16."