Tasks v Calendars: Why can't tasks have reminders?

** WARNING: RANT ALERT! **

I've tried hard to keep rants to a minimum: suppressing anger until it can be reflected upon and emerge as a coherent and consise (if a little damning and judgemental) posting. Posts on Referees in Football, Cricket Referrals and Why Fans Aren't Important in Football spring to mind. I hope others agree that they're more thoughtfull than spleen-venting electronic anger! Up until now these postings have been reserved for sport-related topics but I can't hold back on my loathing of tasks any longer!   

If I had one question to ask anyone in the world right now it would be this:

"Why can't tasks have reminders in them?"

I've searched the web a bit for a definition of Tasks and Events (or more a distinction between the two) and not been able to find any. However I don't think it's too difficult to suggest a couple myself. I believe an event can be described as 'something that has or will happen'. A Task in contrast is probably adequately described as 'something that has to happen'. That's adequate in respect that it could be more concisely described were I not to make the link between the two obvious ('something' and 'happen'). 

Definition aside the real differences between the two categories is functionality: events have people, places, resources and reminders associated with them, whether you are in Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar. Likewise, non-application specific Tasks share descriptions, due dates and status categories. These seem like sensible enough features and appropriate to each category. I doubt a task (cancel the milk, phone the estate agent or finish the draft strategy document) really needs people, resources, scheduling re-occurrences etc. Neither would you expect to need to mark off an event 'corporate hospitality at the football' as complete after the final whistle! I do believe, however, that there is a place for reminders in tasks.  

As someone capable of forgetting my front door in the event I'm not actually looking at it, tasks are important to me. I write down almost everything that is asked of me in a working environment, less I would forget the instant my mind wandered inevitably towards food! Anything not work-related tends to end up as an event in Google Calendar as I use the SMS reminder feature. But they're not events as such (and defined above) they're most definitely tasks. When Google released their Task application I was excited and started to use it. After a couple of days I forgot about it and it wasn't until a chance encounter a week or so later that I remembered it even existed and then came the realisation of what I'd forgotten to do. Each tasks was neatly described and assigned a due date, for what is was worth. That worth turned out to be nothing as it relied on me checking the list every day to see what needed to be done. 


For me a task is not something that should take a large amount of planning, if any. Therefore I find it's best to schedule it for the time I want to execute the task. Having a reminder go off at that time allows that to happen. I get a text, it reminds me to book the tickets so I pick up the phone/find the website and away I go! It seems such a logical and obvious feature I can't believe it's not standard across all applications. Tasks invariably live with Events so the capability is there. It leaves me at an infuriated loss! 


I would love to know why reminders are included in Tasks. Does anyone know?