Written October 2014

We were asked to be a Nielsen family.

My id was looking forward to my wife and I representing 50,000 people.  We are older and Mensans.  We could keep Honey Boo Boo off the air and let Naked Dating have another season.  We had rumors of sponsors sending free samples to families to get them to watch their commercials.  Greed and power were within our grasp.

Then my superego and Brooke started researching the realities and logistics of having a monitored media opinion.  While I expected a box quickly attached to either outside of the cable box or the TV the true story was there were complicated installations that took hours.  They would inventory the house for other media outlets like computers.

There would be both gadgetry and log books.  I had heard that there was a small stipend (around $50/month).  I did not want to turn my escape from job hunting into work.

We adopted a pregnant cat.

A lady in our neighborhood rescued a small gray tabby.  My wife saw the notice in the subdivision newsletter and agreed to take the cat.  After a week Arye started to show she was in a family way.

When she guessed that the cat was ready to deliver Brooke started to bring the future mama into our bed.  One Saturday morning we were awakened by Arye meowing and delivering kittens.  In less than a hour 5 kittens were born on our bed.

For the next three days I slept on the couch.  I didn’t want to toss and turn onto the new family.