Want to think you matter? Want to know that if you stand up you'll be counted?
Spend more time with the people over at the Census Bureau.This is a group totally unconcerned with where you live, what you're doing, how you got there and where you're thinking of going next.
They couldn't care less if you're behind on your alimony, didn't pay that traffic ticket, filed seven straight extensions on your taxes or called in sick yesterday and played golf.
All they're interested in is counting you. If you say "here" when they call your name, you'll make their day.
Their biggest fear is that people won't see them this way, that folks will hear the knock on the door, look out and see someone on the step and think he's a live telemarketer or a relative who does Amway or a repo man.
Or worse yet, somebody from the FBI, the CIA, the INS or the IRS.
To avoid any confusion with other, more control-oriented government organizations, the bureau will go to great lengths, I was told by the Census Bureau's Salt Lake City office manager, "Pink" Ellis.
As an example, Pink told me about last week's census quest to count each and every homeless person in the city.
A typical homeless person, as you might imagine, does not sit around all day hoping to be visited by somebody from the government.
So when the census takers -- officially they're called enumerators -- flooded the city's underpasses and parks to count the homeless for the 2000 Census, they dressed exactly like the homeless.
"You should have seen them when they left the office," said Pink, "they looked more homeless than the homeless."
Before some of the enumerators even reached the homeless community in and around Pioneer Park they were offered shelter, breakfast and tips on jobs.
Still, even after successfully integrating the homeless neighborhood, as soon as they said they were from the Census Bureau, people tended to run away anyway.
Which is when the free cigarettes and pairs of nice warm socks came out.
"Amazing how well that worked," said Pink.
When the Census Bureau originated in 1790, Thomas Jefferson was the director and the head count was conducted by U.S. marshals, whose uniformed presence effectively communicated to the citizenry the importance of participating with the counting.
Times, of course, have changed. Now, the trick is communicating the unimportance of participating with the counting.
Two hundred years ago, Tough Cop worked. Now, it's Nice Cop.
The older we get, the more distrustful we get.
But that is not the Census Bureau's concern. The Census Bureau's concern is simply to count the country.
And in the counting people business, the end justifies the means.
"We say we're confidential and we mean it," Ellis told me. "We have to be. We don't release any information to anybody."
A famous Census Bureau story dates back to World War II when the government set about to round up people of Japanese descent for the purpose of placing them in wartime internment camps.
The government asked the census people for the names and addresses of Japanese-Americans.
The census people said, back off. They weren't talking.
That was nearly 60 years ago, when Pink Ellis was just a young man, but he still tells the story with pride.
They're not out there to collect your bills, they're out there to make sure you count. That's the Census Bureau. They won't tell anybody where you are. Their lips are sealed.
But you still might want to hold out for the free stuff.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.