My shoulder is a little out of joint for patting myself on the back so much. Thanks to yours truly (and a couple others) Minnesota counted up 89 more people in last year’s census than New York, which means we can keep all eight of our hard-working congress people, including even Tom Emmer, Jim Hagedorn, Pete Stauber and Michelle Fishbach, for whatever it is they actually do.

As enumeraor DACV 908*** (redacted for security), I spent a couple months late last summer knocking on doors and wandering long, maze-like hallways in sprawling apartment complexes trying to get people to either cooperate in either a basic function of democracy or … submit to yet another Big Brother socialist scheme to deprive us of our freedoms, depending on whether or not they listen to Laura Ingraham.

Truth be told, I signed up for the job because I thought it’d be interesting. You know, face to face with “real America”, albeit during a pandemic. There’d have to be some stories in that. Plus, it paid well enough to incentivize me to break away from my usual 3 p.m. happy hours.

A few quick incidents.

***

Tucked away in otherwise middle-class Hopkins, not far off Excelsior Boulevard, is a pretty down-on-its-heels neighborhood little more than three blocks long. The door and steps of one of my assigned houses was already littered with a half dozen Notice of Visit (NOV) slips left by previous enumerators. After ringing and banging, I left another and walked back out to the driveway to check on the next address … simultaneous with a beaten up SUV pulled up in front of the garage.

It was a hot day and after a 30 second stand off — the car idling, the driver obscured by heavily tinted windows and me broiling in the heat waiting for someone to step out — I took another step over and made a “roll it down” motion with my finger. Pause. Then the window began to drop.

And as it does out pours a cloud of dense cannabis smoke that would put Cheech and Chong to shame. What little I inhaled was probably three times stronger than anything I smoked in college. As the cloud wafted away I asked the driver, a mid-thirty-ish black guy, “You live here?”

“No.”

“Ok, do you know who does?”

“No.”

Right. But I’m thinking. You got nothing. But you just pulled into this driveway in frontr of this garage door because … why, exactly?

“How about the people next door?” (It was a duplex.)

“No.” And with that he buzzed up the window, backed up and drove away.

***

Another weed moment was in one of the huge apartment complexes I mentioned. A labyrinth of dimly-lit hallways, infused and cross-infused with every kind of ethnic cooking you can imagine. (IMHO Indian smells best.)

As I walk a hallway as long as one of those Vegas hotels, I hear two male voices shouting and yelping. A fight?

“Dude! Hit it, dude!” “No! No! Back out! Back out!” “Shoot it! Shoot it!” “Aw! You fucked it, man! You had it and you fucked it!”

Not a fight, but two young guys playing video games … and, as luck would have it, in the next apartment on my list.

Knock. Knock.

“Dude, someone at the door! Someone knockin’.”

A longer than expected wait, before the door cracks open just wide enough for a skinny teenage face — and another cloud of reefer — to squeeze through.

“Yo.”

“Hey, how you doing? I’m with the census. You live here?”

An expression like this might be a trick question, and a glance over his shoulder back into the room.

“No.”

“Is the person who lives here here now.”

Another furtive look over his shoulder.

“No. Bro’s sleepin’.”

The guy who “had it” but “fucked it” a second ago is now asleep? Whatever.

“Ok,” I say, as I write out an NOV with numbers to call in the info, “give this to him when he wakes up,”

“Cool.” And the door bangs shut.

***

Another complex. Another hallway. Another knock on another door.

A smiling, 60-ish black gal answers. “Why hello, darlin’. Can I help you.”

“Yes, you can thank you, mam. I’m with the census and … .”

“OH! I been meaning to fill that out. But I work nights. Why don’t you come in a minute and we’ll get this done, what do you say?”

I say, “Ok,” as I walk into a spotless, tidy living room … dominated by an enormous 85″ TV suspended off the wall by the window and angled down to a dining room table where the lady has her controllers. Her some-kind-of-dragons-and sorcerors game is on pause.

“Have a seat there on the couch,” she says. And I make myself comfortable in front of a coffee table where a Bible, with a red ribbon place holder, is open to passage that I should have remembered, but as a practicing heathen, I didn’t, other than to notice that she has a plaque over on her kitchen wall referring to the same scripture. (“John” something or other.)

The basic census interview takes maybe 10 minutes, tops. Less if it’s just one person. But as I begin, she hits the controller and resumes her game. She answers the questions half distracted by combat with the fire-breathing reptile. The dragon has a deep, weird snarl. But she’s on its tail, showing no fear as the she goes deeper into its lair.

“Ok, mam. That’s all I need. Thank you so much. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“No problem at all, darlin’. You need anything more I guess you know where I live. Be good now. God bless.”

***

My list wasn’t all minorities. And the two worst were white folks in my own beloved Edina.

In a swank condo complex a millenial woman in corporate power suit attire stands in the hallway berating me — as I’m trying to interview an 80 year-old lady with poor hearing — for having “no permission or authority to be on this property” and accusing me of “lying” when I say I just followed another resident in, who held the door for me.

She goes on so long and so loud I finally have to drop the cool, turn to her and say, “Lady, what is your problem exactly? I’m with the census. See the badge? The census. I’m not exactly Ted Bundy here.”

***

In the same vein was an upscale rambler, also in Edina. The clues, walking up, were the open garage door, with a seven or eight year-old Mercedes covered in dust. A dozen or more newspapers still in their plastic wrappers were strewn all over the walk and up a short wheelchair ramp.

The 70-something white male who answers the door is shirtless and wearing cargo shorts. He’s unkempt and his eyes have an unhealthy, milky glaze to them.

“You’re with the what?”

“The census. Just a few questions. It’ll take maybe 10 minutes.”

“Questions? Like what?”

“Well, like for starters, can I get your name?”

“My name?” he says, indignation rising. “Why would I tell you that? What is this? You’re going to get off my property, right now.”

Census training says to leave and mark folks like that down as uncooperative … or worse.

But this guy isn’t letting up, even as I walk to the next house, where a neighbor is out in his drivedway oiling his bicycle. From now 100 feet away the old guy is still bellowing.

“It’s getting to be like Nazi Germany! Like hell I’m telling you anything! You come back here again and I’m calling the cops!”

The neighbor oiling the bike takes this in and turns to me with a look that says, “Welcome to my life.”