Today is April 12 and for all you procrastinators out there, you just have a few days left to file your taxes. It is the time of year when you humans struggle to find receipts that you left in your pockets, the bottom of drawers and in the console of the car, hoping for some more deductions. Some of you reading this may be feeling smug because you either don’t have to fill out an itemized form or you get money back from the government, but hold on to your horses because what you get back is really just a small percentage of what you pay. And don’t forget about those taxes you pay on every purchase you make. Although many tax dollars go toward some important research, you may be interested in knowing about research studies that your taxes also pay for.

In 2015 the National Institute of Health awarded The Ohio State University a grant of $387,000 to study the benefits of Swedish massage on 18 white rabbits from New Zealand. They were massaged 4x a day. When I heard about that, I wondered why they didn’t call me up. I don’t live that far away from OSU and would have volunteered to be massaged for a couple of Milk Bones.

If that isn’t enough to get you wondering about your tax dollars, the National Science Foundation has given a grant of $171,000 to fund a doctoral student’s research at the University of Rochester, funded through 2018 to study the gambling habits of monkeys. I can just see the student putting the monkeys in car seats, buckling them in and driving to the nearest casino to play Black Jack every day.  It kind of reminds me of the picture of the poker playing dogs. So far the doctoral student has been pleased to find out that ” Luckily, monkeys love to gamble.”  Who would have suspected that?

And last but not least, the National Science Foundation also gave close to a million dollars of taxpayer money to fund a project to find out if they could get mountain lions to walk on a tread mill. The University of California that received the research funding said they had a hard time finding people to participate in the project ( They were surprised by that?) and when they did, it took the mountain lions 8 months to learn to walk on the treadmill. I don’t want to be judgmental, but it seems like those mountain lions must be pretty slow learners. Doc taught me to walk on her treadmill in about 15 minutes.

Now that you know where all your hard-earned money is going, doesn’t that make you feel better about paying taxes? I didn’t think so. Just so you know, I would be happy if you could put in a good word for me at one of those institutions dolling out taxpayer money. I am thinking of researching and marketing how to sell my dog poop as garden fertilizer. Oh, I forgot, they are already doing that with Llama poop.