Even down here, from under this nice comfy rock where I reside, I can tell the election is coming. If I were to manage to forget the date, miss the yard signs and keep the radio off  the phone calls alone would remind me. These are no ordinary political calls either.In fact I haven’t received a single call telling me who I should vote for and why. Nope, so far all I’ve answered are survey questions. Survey questions, which I must admit, I’m pathetically happy to answer.

You see it’s like this…

Here I am home alone with three kids. We’ve almost made it through another day. Which means that I’ve answered approximately 5,00,000,003 questions. 3,000,000,000 of my answers were considered wrong by the children and resulted in lengthy repetitive “discussions” (read how many different ways can you say, “No more apple cider!”). 2,000,000,000 of my answers were never heard by the kids because they had already moved on to other things and the last three of my answers were considered satisfactory and were allowed to stand.  I’m on the brink of answering question 5,000,000,004 thinking the odds are poor that it will have a good outcome when the magic moment happens – the phone rings. A ringing phone can only mean one thing – ADULT CONVERSATION! I jump up shedding kids, dogs and dinner paraphernalia like a duck sheds water, dash to the phone and try to say hello as if I’m not grasping at a life line.

My excitement over the ringing phone had started to wane when I realized that three quarters of all my phone calls were people asking me what I think. But then I realized something. Three quarters of my phone calls are adults asking me what I think! I answer, and no one argues, screams, cries or stomps the ground. Sometimes they say things like “Really?!” which strikes me as odd and my science background is then suspicious of their results.  Sometimes I mess with them to see if I can get them to leave their script – also not good scientific survey etiquette. Sometimes they provide “information” and then ask their questions again which makes the biologist in me shudder in horror. Most of the time I just cheerfully answer their questions using their awkward phrase of choice.

After the most recent barrage of survey questions I hung up the phone and realized something quite depressing.The political season’s version of telemarketers has become my new entertainment. Standing in the kitchen already besieged by more unanswerable questions from my own personal Lollipop Guild  I immediately made myself a promise that I strongly agreed with…

I must crawl out from under my rock for a social event more often than my once a week library visit and I will never believe the results of the phone polls!

I wrote this for the Daily Post’s writing challenge of the week (of Oct. 1st) and am going with the better late than never theory. To see other responses to the challenge check out:  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/weekly-writing-challenge-metaphor-and-similie/