Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Doing My Civic Duty


I realize I haven't blogged about our recent cruise and trip to Hawaii. I'm still digesting it myself, but let's just say that my friend Kelly refers to it as the Tsunami cruise. Which is probably kinder than calling it the Geriatric/Floating Nursing Home cruise like we've been doing.

That's not what has me up and about this morning. I'm still on Hawaii time, so I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm not sure how long I can play that out, but I'm still claiming to carry around 20 pounds of pregnancy weight and my daughter will be 25 this week, so surely I can use the jet lag excuse a little longer.

Mostly today what kept me from sleeping was "the census." It came yesterday. To be fair, I'd been warned that it was coming. Repeatedly. And in several languages. And alas, it arrived yesterday with the stern warning that my "response is required by law."

Technically, I guess I could pass this one off on Vern since he's considered the head of household but since having him carted off to jail won't really help me get the house finished, I took it upon myself to complete the form and mail it back in "today" as directed by their instructions in bold print.

The problem with "today" is that it wants answers as of April 1. And it doesn't want you to count anyone not living in the home or residing in jail. There's the very real possibility that one of us might not be living here or may be residing in jail by April 1st. PMS is a bitch. Just saying.

So anyway, I filled it out and popped it back in the mail like a good citizen except that I did get a little thrill when I refused to put one letter in each box and instead just wrote our names normally in my regular handwriting. What can I say, I'm a rebel. A law abiding, civic duty doing rebel, but a rebel all the same.

Upon reflection though, I probably shouldn't have been so hasty. I really should have placed a few ads, put up some billboards, produced a few television commercials and sent a letter to Uncle Sam to let him know to expect my census.

2 Comments:

Denise Z. said...

Darn you--ya jinxed me! I just read this entry this morning and guess what dh just brought in from today's mail!

Think we can get adjoining cells (cuz I'm stealing your idea about writing over the boxes! LOL!)

Cyndi said...

You mean you didn't sent a postcard first saying, "I'll be sending in my census form shortly."?? Here's my (accidental) rebellion: In the three boxes for my husband's age, I wrote 6-1-_. How badly will the data be skewed by my 610-year-old spouse?