Census fiasco

The Census form is intended to facilitate a snapshot of the US population on April 1, 2010 (e.g. "Were there any additional people staying here on April 1, 2010 that..."). This means that unless I am God or somehow otherwise know everything ahead of time, it would have been irresponsible to have mailed that form back before April 1st. Yet, the government persisted in mailing us reminders indicating they had not received our form. (Received another reminder today!) Apparently they were annoyed that we did not send in our form before April 1st.

I heard on the radio that 50% of Americans mailed forms in ahead of time.

But I ask you, fellow over-achieving citizens, if you had died yesterday, on March 31st, would your spouse then have had to send in an amended form? Do they even have an amended form? Or would you in dying be personally responsible for screwing up the entire US Census 2010?

Dear "Director, US Census Bureau..." (whoever you are -- since you neglected to sign those personal messages that you sent to me) I mailed the form in this morning. Since the "capture center" (Are you sure you're not friends with our sheriff?) is just down the road from here you should have it on your desk in the morning. Enjoy!