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Will
The Last Person Counted Turn Out The Lights?
by Mad Dog
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Before they can figure out how to throw
away—I mean, split up—our tax dollars they have to know how many people are in
the country and where they live. This should be an easy task. |
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The census is coming. This is the once a decade head count which is the adult
equivalent of sitting in class yelling "Here!" when the teacher calls your name.
Unlike school, though, they won’t send a note home to your parents if you don’t
answer the questions. Instead they’ll come to your house and be more persistent than
a minivan full of Jehovah’s Witnesses, especially if you scratched out your name and
penciled in "Dick Hertz." Trust me, they’ve seen it before. They’re very serious about their census, and
for a good reason. They don’t do it, as many people believe, so they can update the
signs on the road that tell you how many people live in Speedbump, Iowa, or so they can
supply us with fascinating statistics such as—True Fact Alert!—there are more
hogs in North Carolina than people. No, it’s about money: How best to divvy up what
we hand over to the government so the cities and states can waste it. Right, like we
couldn’t waste it just fine on our own if given half a chance.
(TECHNICAL NOTE: They also use the census to determine
congressional apportionment, but since we’re all too busy trying to snag those
Hümmel figures of poker-playing dogs on eBay to vote, who cares?)
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The short form includes questions like "How many people live in your
household?", "Are you sure?", and "Haven’t you ever heard of
birth control?" The long form goes into much more detail. |
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Before they
can figure out how to throw away—I mean, split up—our tax dollars they have to
know how many people are in the country and where they live. This should be an easy task.
If on April 1st, which is Census Day, the first person in the far upper right hand corner
of Maine said "One", the person next to him or her said "Two", and
this continued across the country, by the time it reached the far upper left hand corner
of Washington state it would be like a great big game of telephone and we could all have a
big laugh when the last person announced, "Today is a senseless day" and then go
back to pulling April Fool’s pranks like telling people George W. Bush has dropped
out of the Republican primary to join the Backstreet Boys.
The problem with this idea is: What happens when that twit in the
double-wide in Enid, Oklahoma loses track of his number and we have to start over?
That’s why they mail census forms to us. You may have already received yours. No,
it’s not the one with Ed McMahon’s face on it. That’s the letter from the
lawyers who filed the class action suit against him and Dick writing to ask if you’d
like a piece of the settlement ("You may finally be a winner!"). The census form
is easy to spot—it’s the one without postage.
Most people will get the short form, though one in six will
get a long one. Don’t feel bad if you get a short one. As women are fond of saying
right before asking if you have any fresh batteries: It’s not the length that counts.
The short form includes questions like "How many people live in your
household?", "Are you sure?", and "Haven’t you ever heard of
birth control?" The long form goes into much more detail, asking how you heat your
house, how you get to work, how much money you make, and whether you agree that all this
is none of their business.
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This will be a good change since it means we’ll finally be able to forget all those
confusing terms we’ve been using like city, town, township, and speed trap.
They’ll all be replaced. Well, except the speed trap, which will live on forever. |
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Once they get all
the forms back they’ll spend nine months collating the data. This is a technical term
for "Wanna play another hand of Go Fish while the computer does all the work?"
Years ago they sorted the data by city and county. Then they came up with the concept of
Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a clever way of inflating the population—and
increasing their share of the pot—by including the surrounding area. Think of it as
urban breast enhancement. Thus, northern New Jersey, southern Connecticut, and northeast
Nebraska all became part of the New York City Metropolitan Profit Center. I mean,
Statistical Area. But this being the 2000 census they decided
to slick things up and boost their census takers’ self-image. After all, they do
spend nine out of every ten years on unemployment. That’s why the Metropolitan Area
Standards Committee (motto: "Sub is too a standard!") has recommended that they
dump the old term and replace it with three Statistical Areas of the New Millennium™:
micropolitan, macropolitan, and megapolitan. I’m not kidding about this, though I
wish I was.
If they get their way—and if they have a chairman worth
his political connections they will—these new terms will be rolling off your tongue
before you know it. According to their proposed definition, a megapolitan area has a core
city with more than a million people, a macropolitan has 50,000 to 999,999, and a
micropolitan has a stoplight. This will be a good change since it means we’ll finally
be able to forget all those confusing terms we’ve been using like city, town,
township, and speed trap. They’ll all be replaced. Well, except the speed trap, which
will live on forever, especially in Georgia.
Will the census be successful? Of course it will. After all,
they’ve been carefully planning it for the past nine years, using great big paper
bags stuffed full of money someone forgot to hand to the Future Megalopolitans of America
to ensure that the census goes as planned. Okay, so the first 115 million letters they
sent out were misaddressed and had an extra digit added to the street address, who’s
counting? Oh, that’s right, the Census Bureau is.
©2000 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All
Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Read
them while you're waiting to be counted.
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