The tax guy was going along, dropping between pearls of incomprehensible IRS lingo political observations which I disagreed with entirely. I kept my yap shut.

When he said this outrageous thing or that, I said nothing. I am no fool. You do not start a fight with the guy who’s preparing your taxes — and ensure that he should suddenly lose his skills to rescue my befuddled finances to pique.

There are moments when even the strongest among us bite the lip.

You never argue with a barber, or hairdresser, lest you end up with a monk’s over-whittled tonsure.

You never argue with the State Trooper who is giving you a diminished ticket.

You never argue, if you in your right mind, with tall women. Or short women. Or women in between. You will never win. Never.

You do not get into dispute over trifles with the cruise ship crewmember who is hauling you out of the drink after the captain has run the liner into the rocks.

Screws tight, you do not get into an argument with the TSA person who has heard it all before and is as likely to assign you to the Gnarled Turkish Strip Search as to admire your airy, well-crafted insults.

Discretion is so much the better part of valor when listening to the dentist expound on some crazed theory or another; when under the back-cracking mauling of even those most profoundly wrong-headed chiropractor; when the harried fireman is deciding on whether to rescue you or the family sofa.

You can argue with presidents and bishops and baseball umpires but wisdom whistles for silence from even the magician who discovers a hare in his soup brought in by a wild-eyed, cranky waiter with a temperamental chef flinging about the pots and pans in the background.

Or when the tax guy is deciding which of your dodgey deductions to include, or which of the hundreds of oprions he could follow or ignore to save you a bundle.

Loose lips sink ships.