I don't look that good on paper.

A few days ago I received in the mail a survey that this research company wanted me to take. I get them every once in awhile, but this one was special - it had ten bucks attached to it. Actual money, too. Not some dumb check I was going to forget to cash. Of course, I had to hand the money over to Jasmine so she and a friend could go get pizza, but that's beside the point.

It was one of the most mind numbing things I have ever done. This thing was 18 pages long and was in print this small. There were questions on every subject imaginable. What magazines I read, what airlines I like, what shows I watch, just everything. So after about 35 minutes with this thing I realized something. I don't look very good on paper. Out of a list of like 50 magazines, I subscribe to only three - Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, and Martha Stewart. I couldn't even say I'd seen a Baron's Magazine or a New Yorker in the last twelve months. I was proud to say that I had seen Gourmet Magazine. It was at the dentist office, but it counts.

I bombed completely at the airlines portion of the survey. There were two pages of airlines and I had to check boxes for which ones I'd flown on in the last 12 months. I had no idea there were that many airlines out there. If pressed, I may be able to come up with five names, but two pages worth? I had to check the soul sucking "I haven't been anywhere that can't be driven on a tank of gas, therefore I have not flown on any of these airlines" box. Pathetic, really.

The TV portion didn't make me feel much better. Two more pages of stations and the task of ranking - a. which ones I recieve and b. of the ones I receive, how many hours in a seven day week do I watch them. We get MSNBC, and I do watch it. But I watch DIY way more. We also get CNN, and I do watch that, too. However, I watch The Food Network WAY more.

So if all that wasn't bad enough, along came the finacial section. Do I bring in an income? No. Do I work outside the home? No. Do I regularly trade in the stock market? No. Do I have a personal Broker? No. How many IRAs do I have? Do I prefer municipal bonds over blah blah blah.... Technically, I do have some part time work. But it's hours are so few, and the money so meager that they didn't have a bracket for me. I had to answer no.

In the end, I was reduced to a no job, no income woman who's interests fall squarely on entertainment media and home repair. I don't travel, I don't trade stocks, and I watch more entertainment than hard core news. Pretty sad.

Then I got to thinking, they just weren't asking me the right questions. I could have come out on top if they asked things like -

In the past 12 months, how much bodily fluid (in liquid ounces) have you cleaned up that did not belong to you?

Have you done any laundry in the past 12 months, and of those loads how many were really nasty?

Have you successfully potty trained another human being? *Yes! All hats are safe!*

Have you taught a preteen how to correctly use a tampon?

In the hundreds, how many chocolate chip cookies have you made for school functions?

In the last 12 months, have you ever had to go to the grocery store more than 3 times in the same 24 hour period?

At Christmas time did you make fleece socks for every one of your daughter's elementary school teachers?

You can see where I'm going with this. I may not have been reading Barron's all year and spending quality time with my stock portfolio, but I have been useful.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What have you done in the past twelve months?