I was IMing with the BH today, letting him know that I had all the ingredients ready for a french-style salad with fried rounds of goat cheese for dinner (more on that later) and the phone rang. It was an unlisted number, but in the vein of doing things that aren’t actually brave but that scare me regardless, I picked up the phone.
It was the Gallup Poll. And the Better Half wasn’t home to answer it.
How often does the Gallup Poll call in one’s lifetime? Rarely, I’m sure. It’s one of those things, like Nielsen families and TV ratings– you wonder– are they just making shit up?
Apparently not.
Now, I’ve written before about the BH’s marketing geekery, and I knew that if I didn’t answer the questions, he’d consider it grounds for divorce, or at least some full-body Olympic-class eyerolling. I mean, this is a man so dedicated to his “art” (airquotes intended) that he has listened to the Gallup Poll Daily Briefing Podcast (I KNOW, RIGHT? Though it seems like it no longer airs, I’m unable to tell) and been able, with uncanny ability, to imitate the accent of Frank M. Newport, Editor-in-Chief of the Gallup Poll.
And damned if the woman on the other end of the phone didn’t say it just like he does. Newport, that is, not just the husband. It was uncanny.
The poll itself? Pretty boring. It was maybe twenty questions (I know, I should have kept count, or recorded the conversation, or something, one more sign what a Bad Wife I am) about current thoughts on personal and national financial health and personal health. It really wasn’t that interesting, except that among the major diseases they asked me if I was suffering from, one of them was depression. I said yes, and got a bunch of depression-related questions about work and my outlook on life, etc., and otherwise answered the polite, clear-spoken woman’s questions.
“Thank you for assisting the Gallup Poll, Democracy on Demand,” she said when she signed off. The BH was thrilled, because apparently that was one of Newport’s trademark signoffs. He practically flapped his hands in fangirlish glee.
And yet he had the audacity (the gall! the nerve!) to complain when I proposed calling this post The Apotheosis of Polling, or perhaps the Ne Polls Ultra. (Even I deemed A-poll-theosis too tortured to essay it. Oh, wait, I just did.)
Really. Some people are so demanding.
He geeks about polls, I geek about puns. I think we’re even.
LOL!
Me and your husband? Same. I’m thrilled to share my opinion.
He needs to poll about puns, so you can pun about polls.
A-poll-theosis? Wicked woman, that was just too funny. As a fellow poll geek I must admit even I never went so far as to listen to a Gallup podcast (webcasts don’t count, right? You specified pod after all…) That said I thought I would share this with you so that you might pass it on to your BH and earn some “Good Wife” cred.
On the final night of the GOP convention the Giants were playing the Redskins. Over at the website FiveThirtyEight (an aggregate political polling site) Nate Silver was live blogging the run up to McCain’s speech when he made the following comment about the Giants game:
“Gallup has the score Giants 20, Redskins 6. Rasmussen has them ahead 14–7. But Zogby Interactive has it Redskins 11, Giants 5.”
The actual score was Giants 16, Redskins 7, in the third quarter.
All the best,
Robert
You’re so much nicer than I. I don’t like to share with strangers, unless it’s a guy in a Jeep or a man with an iPod panhandling, then I give them money.
i got a thing from the us census. the envelope said that my response is required by law. and i? threw it away. booyah.