The Princeville Telephone
"Through My Kitchen Window"
by Vickie Callahan
3/22/90
It's time to stand up (or sit down if you were one of the fortunate ones who received the long form) and be counted. I was a little incensed by the prying questions on my census form until a friend reminded me that census-taking is a Biblical concept. Obviously, though, she received the short form and wasn't pressed into tallying annual heating costs or digging out the property tax receipts and W-2 forms. . . pfft!So let's take a look at this form:
First I am thanked in advance for completing the form. Well, you're welcome. Then I am told that the law requires answers but guarantees privacy. What comes to mind immediately is the promise which was given with the attempted and successful passage of the Social Security Act--that the number assigned to each citizen would never be used for any purpose other than the recording of Social Security tax payments. Uh-huh.
Actually, I had some fun filling in the form. It was interesting to me that the form is to be returned by April 1st, yet the questions are to be answered according to prevailing conditions on April 1st--when the form has long ago been filled-in, folded, and sent on its way. This day we have flushing toilets, which qualifies as a "yes" for "Complete Plumbing Facilities", and the stove is working today--another "yes" for "Complete Kitchen Facilities", athough the stove is so ugly and cantankerous in its performance that close friends have ventured so far as to boldly ask when I'm going to get a new one. Hmmm, I hope it will still be working on April 1st, lest I will have unwittingly submitted false information.
I had a little trouble with the "Which fuel is used most for heating this house or apartment?" Well now, that depends on the price of propane at any given moment and how cranky I have or have not been about being cold. Some days it's propane, some days it's kerosene, some days it's electricty (from that dilapidated stove) and some days it's all three and still not enough. I thought about marking "Other" and penciling in "Blubber", giving the impression that we'd given up on heating the house and had resorted to just trying to warm our bodies. I knew that wouldn't wash, so I finally marked "propane".
I thought my fact finding mission would be completed when I got to the more personal questions about each individual housed within our home. I expected in this segment I would get to answer questions about my personal interests and hobbies--whether I liked to bowl or go camping. Maybe they would want to know which television programs we do and do not like, and they might even ask some questions about my latest cross stitch projects. It wasn't to be so. They were the most mundane questions about age, place of birth, and extent of education.
I ran into some trouble, though, when I came to question number 13, "What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?" Well, for cryin' in a bucket, I don't know. I suppose one is expected to be interested enough in one's personal heritage to know from whence one came, but the extent of my knowledge in this area just about stopped at the fact that "Callahan" is an Irish name, and I was born a "Hatfield". All my life I've answered tired questions about the Hatfields and McCoys with the response that all the Hatfields I'd ever known feuded only with other Hatfields and we'd never met a real McCoy.
I was to ask my husband later what was running through his veins besides red cells, white cells, and platelets. He came up with an Irish-German-Dutch mix. As for my own circulatory system, I was certain of some English, Scots, and American Indian running amok in there somewhere, so I filled my little box with that concoction.
But these boxes are only so large, so when it came to identifying our children I was in real trouble. Now I'd heard on the news that if you failed to complete your census form, the Census Bureau would go to your neighbors in order to attain the information about you. I thought about leaving our children's ancestry blank and letting the neighbors try to figure it out, but we like our neighbors, so why subject them to tea-with-the-Census-Bureau-and-you're-the-host.
I tried squeezing "Irish-German-Dutch-English-Scots-American Indian" into the space provided and was glad this was being done in pencil because I could erase the mess I'd just made. The instruction booklet had said it would take the average citizen only 43 minutes to fill in the entire form, and I was pushing the outside edge of that time-span, so lest I be labelled "below average", I quickly penciled-in "Mutt".
Finished! And with 2 minutes and 37 seconds to spare. I guess that makes me a slightly above average, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen with a guest bedroom, a telephone, no agricultural sales, and complete plumbing facilities.
I have been counted!
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