The Bully's in the Mail

I've spent the last hour attempting to scan a revolting piece of mail into my new laptop so I could share it with you. But, my printer from 2003 refuses to be friends with the new Windows Vista so I have given up. I've resolved to giving the kids my printer/scanner along with my old computer and I'll have to upgrade to a newer, friendlier printer.

Now to that revolting piece of mail--you'll just have to imagine it with me. It's a rather large envelope, very thick, and in a black box right on the front, are these words: The American Community Survey Form Enclosed. YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW I'm not yelling at you; that's how it was written. Remember? I'm trying to help you visualize.

So my immediate response is, "I don't want to". If they sent me a nice letter, explaining how they needed me to complete it, I probably would have been happy to comply. But, since the government has ordered me to complete this 28 page form, I have reverted to the side of me that resembles a 5 yr. old refusing to clean her room. I was briefly tempted to not do it just to see what would happen, but I decided provoking a government agency was probably not a good plan.

My other big problem with this form, other than it taking 45 minutes to complete, is I had to answer all kinds of questions about everyone in my house--including the kids. Don't I have a right to privacy? Apparently not since I was asked to reveal everything about us...how much money we make, how long we drive to work, when we leave for work, where we work, what we do, where the kids go to school, and on and on and on. See what a little fear of a $500 fine can make you reveal?

So anyway, hopefully I'll have all my technological capabilities converted over to the new laptop soon which I had to purchase for a multitude of reasons that I won't go into. Just know that at the top of the list was a phone chord draped from my kitchen across the entry way into the living room to my desk that was going to eventually cause a broken appendage, probably mine, and a strong temptation to slam my desk top against the wall every time I used it because it is 5 years old and that's like 100 in computer years. Now if I could only win a copy of Photoshop Elements from one of Pioneer Woman's giveaways, my conversion to modern technology would be complete.