STOLE MY ANSWER -- ONE MAN'S ANSWER TO THE CENSUS

"Yes, we are a family of 17 Antarctican immigrants who belong to the Jedi Order, and live with our pets whom we have married in three-and-a-half-way marriages. We have no clue whose children these are living among us.

We have 3 bathrooms, but no indoor plumbing. Our electricity is provided by our tank of electric eels.

Our house has 197 3/4 rooms if you count the 8 other spatial dimensions which are wrapped around us.

You've got a little string of 7th dimension on your elbow even now. Please don't take it with you when you leave, since that is where my archaeopteryx sleeps. But, it's time to bow to the carpet slugs now, so I must go. May you serve the picklewarts with gusto!"

3A. IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.

Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400.

My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven.

I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.

I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

On a more serious note, I was somewhat perturbed to receive in the mail yesterday a second copy of the Census form, which I had already filled out and returned for this particular location about a week ago (stating, accurately, that no one lives here as a primary residence, only occupant will be counted elsewhere). The cover letter says it’s my “last chance” to respond before a Census worker will pay me a visit. Understand that this is being mailed to an apartment in an area with a high concentration of illegal immigrants and of US citizens with sketchy backgrounds (i.e. likely to be somebody in many of the households who has a warrant out for their arrest, had been dodging a probation officer, or is living off-the-books in taxpayer-subsidized housing, etc). In other words, an area where a lot of people are inclined to panic at the threat of a visit by any official representative of the government. I have a feeling a lot of these second copies are going to get filled out again by people who are afraid their first one got lost in the mail, and that the extras will somehow be used to produce a deliberately inflated count for this area.

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