Attack of the Census Worker

I was sitting on the porch, laptop propped oddly enough on my lap while the kids were sitting on the steps blowing bubbles when a large black GMC drove up and parked behind the neighbor’s car. I jotted down the license plate, not because of any particular paranoia, but because we’re currently collecting a little data of sorts for the police department to shut down a nearby probable drug-selling house…welcome to south Tacoma.

Anywho…the lady who gets out of the passenger side walks not to the neighbor as I suspected, or even the drug house, but to us. She stays at the sidewalk, introduces herself as a census worker (and yes, I could see her badge), and asks if we had sent ours in. We had, and then she explained that they check on ones that get misplaced or destroyed or never make it, etc…and actually asks me if I have a couple of minutes. I oblige, if for no other reason than morbid curiosity. Plus she was actually pleasant. (Hint to other government workers…)

And whaddya know…despite pamphlets and ad campaigns stating that all of the extraneous questions on this year’s census had to be answered, the only questions asked were number of people living here, names (she even asked how to spell a couple of them), date of birth, and race, where we had a small conversation (it gets confusing to me when the wife is half Portuguese!). That’s it.

Guess we can “move forward” now. Whatever that means, aside from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a silly ad campaign…

I was sitting on the porch, laptop propped oddly enough on my lap while the kids were sitting on the steps blowing bubbles when a large black GMC drove up and parked behind the neighbor’s car. I jotted down the license plate, not because of any particular paranoia, but because we’re currently collecting a little…