Meet the family
It was a pile of junk mail like any other. Then I looked closer. On top lay a suspicious manila envelope, bearing this inscription:
Inside was a six-page, multiple-choice questionnaire, courtesy of the “Consumer Research Centre.” There were over 100 questions on a wide range of topics, from how I invest my money to what brand of cranberry juice I drink, from what newspapers I read to whether I wet my bed.
Also enclosed was an inspirational, heavily underlined form letter telling me that my opinion was critically important. In exchange for filling out the survey, I would receive valuable coupons, a minuscule chance of winning a cruise or cash prize, and the opportunity to receive even more junk mail than I already do .
I shook my head in disgust. This Diane person wanted me to give her confidential information about my income, health, hygiene, and spending habits—which would be linked to my name and distributed who knows where—in exchange for diddly-squat?
The landscape may be packed with people willing to puncture their privacy for perks as pitiful as this, but I’m not one of them. For me, this was the final insult. It was time to rebel against Diane, the Consumer Research Centre, and all the other market research bastards who wished to inject their slimy sensory tendrils into my brain.
I knew what I had to do. I would fill out the survey, and I would lie. I would lie to the maximum degree possible within the confines of the multiple-choice format. I would create a fictional family so improbable and eccentric, it would melt the microchips of any supercomputer that tried to assess it.
So I pulled out a pen and started checking boxes. First, some basic demographics. Let’s see—I’m 18-20 years of age, and I am married (or equivalent). My spouse (or equivalent) is over 65 years of age, and is expecting a baby.
This was going to be fun.
My spouse (or equivalent) and I have three children (aged 4 months, 6 months and 9 months), and also have a grandchild aged 12 or younger. We live in an “other type” of dwelling, the precise nature of which we do not wish to disclose.
The combined income for all members of my household in 2000 (before tax) was less than $20,000, and we plan to buy a house and RV in the next year, as well as a compact car, sub-compact car and full-size van. We regularly watch or participate in “walking,” and at least one member of the household is an avid bird watcher and casino gambler.
Interestingly, we boycott many common household products. We do not use bar soap, dental floss, laundry detergent, Q-Tips, antiperspirant, deodorant, charity lotteries, or soup.
But when it comes to beer, gum, tampons and margarine, our consumption goes off the scale. We regularly use 15 major brands of beer, 10 brands of gum, 8 brands of tampons and 7 brands of margarine. In an average week I drink 14 or more servings of caffeine-free diet cola, which may well be the reason why I use 11 brands of heartburn remedy on a daily basis. And although I have no idea what it is, I use vast quantities of tar shampoo.
Speaking of tar, the “1st adult smoker” in the household (whom I assume is me) smokes more than 10 king-size, full-flavour cigarettes per day. Of my last 10 cigarette purchases, none were of my usual brand—which, thanks to a rare fill-in-the-blank question, I declared to be “SMEGMATA.” Mmmm, you can really taste the smegma!
Moving from tobacco to the related area of baby nutrition, I selected “breast milk” as our “usual brand” of baby food—wow, I had no idea you could buy it at the supermarket! And since when was breast milk a “brand,” anyway? Because it’s secreted from a woman’s mammary brands, perhaps? What kind of bizarre parallel universe does this Diane inhabit?
As I continued through the survey, it quickly became apparent that my household is a seething den of contradiction. We don’t redeem store coupons, yet we have redeemed more than 15 store coupons in the past four weeks. We don’t purchase hearing aid batteries, yet we purchase hearing aid batteries through the mail.
We don’t read newspapers, yet we subscribe to three—all published in cities that are thousands of kilometers from where we live. And most mysteriously, we consume 11 or more servings of cat food per week, yet we have no pets.
However, my family is perhaps most remarkable for our staggering range of health problems. Among other things, we persistently suffer from insomnia, arthritis, athlete’s foot, lactose intolerance, allergies, diabetes, diarrhoea, dandruff, yeast infections, bladder leakage and bedwetting—yet we refuse to treat any of these ailments.
And so on. I merrily completed the questionnaire and dropped it in the mail, knowing in my heart that it probably wouldn’t cause the sudden collapse of the market research industry I was hoping for. Alas, Diane surely had a data filter in place to weed out joke responses from people like me—her supercomputer probably took one look at my pregnant, senior-citizen spouse and dispatched my corrupt masterpiece to the digital dumpster.
But I don’t let that get me down. In spite of the fact it’s a pack of lies, maybe my response really will make a measurable difference in the quality and value of the products I buy every day. Or, more likely, the products other people buy every day.
Perhaps, because I participated in that survey, hearing-impaired bedwetters with athlete’s foot will someday have a less stressful time buying gum—and on that day, I’ll know my efforts have not been in vain. •
Originally published in The Peak, April 2 2001. Original title: “Meet the Callenders”
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