This past

Saturday, I had the rare opportunity of participating in

the census for the second time this year.

Mind you, I didn't want to

be counted twice, but the census taker simply would not

take no for an answer. I knew this was coming because my

household received every census-related mailing in

duplicate, one with the street number and name, which was

accurate, and one with the street number, name, and

"Pky," which was not.

last mailing, which was a reminder to mail in the census

form(s), I had the foresight to save both copies for

future reference. Alas, I could not produce the copies

until after the census taker had departed, but chances

are, it would not have made much difference anyway -

he was very persuasive. So it was that my family was

counted twice. Isn't that cheating? What a silly game, I

thought.

You too, you say? Quite

possibly so. The gentleman who came knocking at my door

gave nary a twitch when I rattled off my highly original

retort, "I got two, but I only sent one in."

It seems he had heard it

already just a few times that day, all along my street,

and on an adjoining street as well. Realizing that a

street address minus the street, lane, way, path, road,

parkway, or place is not entirely unheard of these days,

I have to wonder just how many of us are being

counted twice? And what is the point of playing a game,

if you don't play by the rules?

A not so speedy call to the

800 number on the back of the reminder eventually

produced a person who was very polite, but very helpless

in correcting the problem.

Finally he suggested that I

file a formal complaint, which was really nothing more

than a typed one-sentence declaration that a call was

made to report a problem, and yet he assured me that the

problem would be fixed before the 2010 census.

Gee, that's a relief.

"Don't you need to

know the address I am referring to?" I asked

curiously. "Oh, no ma'am, we don't identify

complaints by name or address," my helpfully

helpless friend informed me.

So, let me get this

straight. The same government entity which wishes to

identify each of us by name and address has no interest

in cataloguing our complaints in a similar fashion? The

same government entity which wishes to count everyone for

purposes of reapportioning congressional seats and

ensuring "that all communities get their fair share

of government funding" has no problem with counting

some of us twice?

The young man on the phone

assured me that the statistical program used to analyze

census data would ferret out any duplicate responses. Of

course this same young man assured me that all addresses

were verified against local postal records, and that any

discrepancies would be corrected by the postal service.

Would that be via the

carrier or the sorter? My duplicate mailings made it

right on through without a hitch, all four of them.

Apparently, Fayette County

is leading the state with the highest response rate thus

far. Duplicate responses notwithstanding, that would be

great for us if we were likely to receive our "fair

share," but in the game of Life, the concept of

community property (federal taxes paid on our earnings),

with the IRS playing banker, dictates that what's ours is

theirs and what's ours is theirs.

Or is that Monopoly? Oh,

no, Monopoly is what that guy Bill Gates played, the game

they used to call Stratego.

To sum things up, remember

that in the census game, if you roll doubles, you get to

take another turn. It matters not if you prefer the

outmoded (and nearly completely soaked) Battleship

version or the increasingly popular Candyland edition.

Never mind the rules, they change each time the game is

played.

Winning or losing isn't

important, it's how you play the game that counts.

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