When the doorbell rang, Tod was in the kitchen making coffee so I ran down to answer it. Maybe it was one of those packages we keep missing.
It was a high school student, dressed in his school uniform of navy blue pants and a matching military style jacket. He explained that he was conducting a survey. Would I be interested in participating?
"Language practice," I thought. I agreed to help him.
We stood together outside to do the survey, leaning on the mailbox so that I could fill in the answers. He read each question aloud to me, running his finger along the page so I could follow, and helped me with the words I didn't know. I ducked inside to get my electronic dictionary to help me with the more complicated concepts.
I have taken countless surveys in America (I find surveys to be quite fun) but I never realised how complicated they can be. If you answer "very good" to 5a, it doesn't make sense to choose "very bad" for 6b. I'm sure that there were some questions that I didn't quite understand because at least one of my answers elicited a quiet response of surprise from my questioner.
It took 20 minutes to get through the 13 pages of the survey. The topic? Steamed buns.
At the end of my labours, I was rewarded with a book token. I think I'll go buy a cookbook.
Leave a comment