The Circus Welcomes The US Govt

We had really good intentions, I swear.

We got the envelope in the mail and when it came, I remember Scott perusing it and saying, “We must mail this in soon.  We can’t forget to do this.” 

And so I did what I do with all of our important papers and I put it on the counter so I wouldn’t lose it and so I’d know right where they were.

Yea… so that plan was slightly flawed… surprised, huh?

Come April when I couldn’t find those papers anywhere, I called the Census Bureau, like a some what responsible American, to give them our info over the phone and to make sure we weren’t adding to the crazy cost of the census by making someone come to our home. 

I answered every single question over the phone and I am sure it took twice as long to answer them over the phone as it would to fill them in the day the papers arrived in the mail. 

But, I was doing my part to make sure we were counted.

3 weeks later the kids and I are upstairs… my son is reading to me from his reader, the girls are running around chasing each other and at some point the dog lifts her ears and barks once.  Just another day at the circus….

I think nothing of it until I get off of the couch about 10 minutes later and notice a strange car in my driveway.  I watch for a few minutes, but no one appears to be getting out.  After the kids and I stare out the window for at least 5 minutes,  I decide to go downstairs to investigate further.  

Of course, I coerce the dog to go out on the back deck first so she doesn’t race out the front door when I open it.  Then I instruct my youngest to please put her pants on.  (Seems she must have gone potty somewhere during reading time and never completed the last step).  I had no idea who was in our driveway, but didn’t want them to see it all when I came to the door.

I then locked the gate at the top of the stairs (hoping it would keep the kids upstairs) and went to the front door while the kids peered out the window.

When I opened the front door I found a slip of paper from the Census Bureau telling me that someone had stopped by, but we weren’t home, so please call back or they would come back in a few days. 

Seriously, did the person knock at all?  All someone has to do is shut their car door and my dog will typically sound the alarm.  She barely made a noise.  I seriously wonder if the lady just pretended to knock. 

I assumed the car in the driveway was this stealth census worker so I walked out to the driveway barefoot and pregnant, holding my phone (incase it wasn’t the census worker and I needed to call for help). 

The lady was so excited that I came out and she didn’t have to come back.  She asked if she could just step inside the door to ask me the questions on the form.  I told her that I did in fact call the census bureau in April and answered all the questions.  She said she would mark that down.  We entered the house.  I picked a random banana peel off of the floor as we walked in.  (Niiiiice).  I did not invite her upstairs, (b/c who knows what we’d find up there) but stood in the door way, hoping the kids would just stay upstairs while I answered the questions, again.

Suddenly I hear quite a bit of noise from upstairs.  Seems the kids took to arming the house… every single toy gun we own seemed to make an appearance.  I can hear the loud stun gun and see the nerf bullets fly down the stairs.  I pretend I don’t hear them as I tell her the names, birthdates, sex, and skin color of everyone in our family and assure her that this is our only house and no one else was living with us on April 1st. 

All of this chaos in addition to my ginormous belly prompted the lady to be very understanding about the fact that we didn’t mail our form in.   She could “certainly see that we were quite busy and had our hands full.” 

Throughout this interview, the kids did creep downstairs once, but I shewed them back upstairs.  The noise of pretend gun fire rained down on us the entire time.  Seriously, I have no idea what they were doing, unless it was “defending their abode.”    I told the lady we had a well fortified house.  She said, “Well, your girls will certainly know how to handle themselves.”

Yes, that is true.  My girls can def defend themselves, thanks to the example and tutelage of their big brother. 

And I am pretty sure this census lady thinks we have our own militia here at the circus home.