Hank and Katherine's Survey

Every year my dear friends Hank and Katherine send a survey out to all their friends. They've been doing this since email surveys are what people did with Señor Internet. But even if it's a bit naff and rubbishy to send people online surveys these days, I look forward to H & K's because Hank swore he would do it every year until he died, and when Hank says he's going to do something, you better watch yoself. That's how he got a Wikipedia page and became an internet sensation. Plus, it is a sweet reminder that Hank and Katherine are still alive. Pluuuus, they ask funny questions.

1. Email: REDACTED

2. Instant messenger: huh?

3. Address: RETRACTED

4. phone number: REENACTED
5. Your favorite purchase of the entire year was: a 2 night stay in the Athens Regional Medical Center. Seriously. At first I was all "I can have this baby at home by myself with some hot water and towels like they do it in Africa," but then I ended up having Odessa in the hospital, and I was all "NURSE! Bring me an ice pack and a Diet Coke! And another a Tylenol #3 to wash it down with!" Not really, but being in the hospital was actually really nice, and it only cost my insurance company $13,000!

6. How long have you known Hank and Katherine? Since 2004, when I met Hank in that picnic shelter.

7. What do you want from us? I want to see you every day.

8. What have you been up to for the last year? Hmm. Things I haven't been up to: exercising, being able to remember more than 2 things at a time, losing 20 pounds.

9. How much longer will you be doing what you're doing? How much longer will I not be doing the things I haven't been doing? I hope not much longer.

10. Why are you doing it? Because I love love love love love my baby.

11. What do you want to be doing? Staying home all day with Odessa. Which I'm not because I work for very nice environmental nonprofit that needs me. And I need its paycheck. The bottom line is I like to work, but I like Odessa more.

12. How much money would it take to separate you from your non-dominant pinky finger? Like under anesthesia? Or is a team of horses going to jerk it off? Just curious, because it would affect my answer. But I would like to say it's not for sale, so because it's an entirely hypothetical question: It's Not For Sale.

13. When was the last time you dyed your hair? 1998. Erica did it.

14. You've just been implicated in a murder you did not commit, you have no chance of escaping the death penalty. You must flee the country and start a new identity...where do you go...and what will your new name be?

Okay--so, would I have to move somewhere where I would be inconspicuous? Because that would preclude most places other than Western Europe. How about Holland. Where my name would be Edelweiss Prinzel Unterholzer.

15. How much money is enough money? It's enough money if you can do the thing you want to do without having to worry too much about it. Right now, I just want to go to the movies. This fall, I'm going to want to go to France. In 17 years, I'm going to want to send Odessa to college. How about I not commit to a sum and I'll get back to you when I've bought everything.

16. If Miriam Webster called you and said they had one too many words...which word would you abolish from the english language?Well, I would rather talk about eliminating popular business-style sayings that don't really mean anything, such as "that dovetails nicely with what I was about to say" or "low hanging fruit" or "synergy" or "herding cats" or a bunch of talk about "the carrot and the stick."

17. What band or singer, upon coming onto the radio, makes you change the station the fastest? Two words you will never hear me speak aloud: Peter Frampton.

18. What do you think will be gone in ten years? Stupid, boring vampires.

19. In this space, write your own question and answer it (but don't delete the directions, otherwise, everyone gets confused.)

Q: Who's the very best person to be married to?

A: Bryan Nuse, because he has stayed at home with Odessa every day for a year and has taken super special good care of her and never complained once. Now, that there's a good man.

20. Three things you would never do...GO!

1. crystal meth

2. poop in a mall planter

3. eat liver

21. What's the first thing you think of when you think of things you haven't done? I haven't yet lived in a foreign land.

22. What makes you feel old? When a 25 year old hears I'm 32 and tells me I'm really "well preserved." That actually happened to me last month.

23. What makes you feel young? The fact that when I read the question "Three things you would never do...GO!", upon first reflection, all three of my answers have to do with farts or poop. Like, I would totally never fart in one of those drive-in banking containers and then send it back through the vacuum tube to the teller. That would just be rude.

24. The best movie of the year was: Bright Star.

25. What's your guiltiest culinary pleasure? sugary sugar with sugar granules.

26. This time last year, Obama was just being sworn in. How do you feel about him now as opposed to how you felt then?

He was good. He's good. Sick of talking about it.

27. Remember back when there was no email. How did we do that?! Yeah, I remember that. I got an email account when I was 18, and three days after that I was writing an email to a prospective boyfriend, complaining about another male friend who is a very good person and whom I liked very much, but I was just trying to impress the prospective boyfriend with my razor-sharp wit and also send him a secret code that told him I was single single singly single. Anyway,while I was writing this email, the friend I was writing the email about came up behind me and accidentally saw part of it, and his feelings were very, very hurt. And we were never as good friends after that. And the prospective boyfriend decided to go out with somebody else.... I still blame the medium.

28. Have you ever fired a gun? Why? Another story:
When I was in 3rd grade, we lived in the mountains of rural California where my dad worked on a cattle ranch for a movie producer named John. John kept this ranch to bring his hotshot friends for peaceful getaways. One weekend he brought the bad guy from Beverly Hills Cop 2 (a really tall, bleach-blond German guy named Jürgen) and his family, and all he wanted to do was shoot all of his handguns. So, we all went out in a field and shot handguns. I was 9 or so, and me and that German's son practiced shooting at targets all afternoon. That kid had his own gun and was really good at it. After that, I asked my dad for a handgun every day until I decided what I really wanted was a Lipizzaner stallion (those cost around $30,000), which lasted until I decided I wanted to go to Space Camp, which lasted until I decided I wanted a pet parakeet, which I got.

29. How do you gauge your success? By how many people seem like they love me.

30. What's wrong with the world? Oh, lots of things. But the one that immediately comes to mind is that people rejoice in others' misfortunes.