5 dollar holler

i did my taxes yesterday. and guess what, i am getting a $5 return. that definitely is going to settle any financial problems i might have been worried about. it's funny though, the thing that kept me from getting 100x that for my return was the amount of time i spent in the U.S. this last year. to get my full refund i needed to live in the U.S. for more than half the year. i took this literally and did the calculations. i came out having lived in the U.S. for 180 days, that left me 3 days short of getting the rest of that money in my return. and you know what else is funny, i would have qualified for the economic stimulus package too if i'd been in the states those 3 days. hmm, 3 days cost me about $1100. nice. but i can't complain, the government already gave me $15,000 for my research, so all is well.