Census

When our census document came, I may have tossed it in a pile like the other boring mail, and forgotten about it.

It is not that I have anything against the census.  I think it is probably a good idea, but I didn’t exactly look forward to filling it out, and I am terrible at mailing anything.

When the second copy of the census document came, I got the sneaking feeling that the government was going to keep sending the darned things until I returned one of them or a census worker came to my door (which is something way more annoying than filling out the form myself and walking to the mailbox.)   Besides that fact, I felt like I was doing my part for the community by filling out the form so our tax money didn’t have to be used to waste paper and postage to send out any more to me.  Or worse, to be used to pay a person to come and knock on my door for several days in a row until they found me at home!

So I filled out the original paperwork, and mailed it out the same day, then recycled the second copy that they had sent to me.

A week or so later, another copy of the document arrived with the mail.  {There went my effort to save paper…}

A week or so after that, Eric was about to hop in a friend’s car, who was picking him up, when a man approached saying that he was a census worker.  Eric assured him that we had sent our form in.  Apparently the man had heard that one before, and Eric had to insist that he did not have time to fill out the form with the census worker before Eric had to leave with his friends.  

A few days later, I answered a knock at the door to see my very own census worker.  Like Eric, I also tried to tell him that I have indeed mailed my paperwork back.  He then informed me that the documents are time sensitive, and not filling out the first one triggers the mailing of the 2nd one.  (which makes perfect sense to me).  But he then explained that once the new form goes out, the first form (which is identical to the newly mailed form) is then no longer valid! Thus a third form was triggered (since I didn’t send back the second form) and the worker call was triggered (since I didn’t fill out the third form.)

All of this makes me a little irritated.  I get that a huge country that takes on a huge project, could easily have a few flaws.  But this one seems like a massive waste of resources!

I have no intention of complaining about politics or the government on this blog.   Just, for some reason, this particular visit sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

(oh my, I am boring myself so much with this story that I fell asleep with my hand on the ‘s’  key! So, I guess I am probably boring most of my readers too…It was really the end of the story anyway.)