Survey results

I'm sure you've all been breathlessly awaiting the results of our blog survey from last week. I know I have. But since it seems that no one else is going to do all the analyzing and making up -- I mean reporting -- of the findings, I guess I had better take a stab at it myself.

I should state up front that I have, in an effort to enhance the accuracy and scientificity of this report, contracted the services of my husband, whose higher math curriculum includes not only Fuzzy Logic but also Asymptotic and Perturbation Analysis. I felt that this expertise would contribute significantly to our understanding of the survey results, which indeed it did. Everything is more fuzzy now than it was before, and we are definitely more perturbed after trying to pronounce "perturbation" (and also trying to figure out whether "scientificity" is really a word).

But on to our findings. One obvious finding, which you all no doubt noticed, was that someone did not answer the final question, which means, statistically, that someone did not answer the final question. Now some purists might argue that we should throw the whole survey out because of this, which of course we will do after we have picked through it for other enlightening scientific data.

The other obvious finding from the survey is that 50% of you are underemployed. No, this was not a question on the survey, but good surveyists will design questions that really get at something other than what the question seems to be asking, such as whether respondents have a hidden cache of gold somewhere that they could be tricked into turning over to the surveyists.

So, the first question -- "How often do you read this blog?" -- was secretly trying to measure of how bored you all are. The astonishing finding that 50% read this blog when they don't have anything to do at work indicates that half of you are underemployed and should immediately be outsourced. On the other hand (this is the nice thing about statistics: you can twist them to make them more positive), the fact that the national underemployment rate is only 9.5% indicates that our readers are overachievers, at least in finding work that does not take full advantage of their talents.

Interestingly, no one responded that they read this blog only during El Nino seasons. This immediately raises an important scientific question: If El Nino refers to the Baby Jesus, who is La Nina? And why wasn't she on the survey?

Sometimes surveys reveal totally unexpected results. This one is no exception. According to the answers on the second question, no one believes that this is a nonfiction blog! This is one of those cases where it is tricky to tease out the possible meanings behind this response, but it would appear that it is due to respondents not remembering what "nonfiction" means. I would tell you, but I can't remember what it means either. It was the one thing consistently noted on my report cards by my teachers, beginning in elementary school and going right through college: "When told to identify a nonfiction book, student consistently chooses a mystery."

The other totally unexpected result was that 33% of respondents think this blog consists of blatant lies. Obviously, since no one could really believe this, these respondents must be under the impression that "blatant" means "false," as in "Is it a false lie that your husband made you wait until after the Super Bowl to call 911 about the carbon monoxide?"

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to putting Joe in charge of our pitiful garden, effective immediately he will quit his job and devote himself full time to talking to the flowers. Maybe they have just needed a man's authoritative voice and manner of slipping them little treats they are not supposed to have.

No one agreed with the suggestion to hire an expert to overhaul our garden. This is good, because by the time we get finished paying the little chimney sweep guys to fix our chimney and furnace flue, there will be no money to pay someone to tell us not to water our flowers so much.

We sincerely thank you for participating in th the Second "Slightly Humorous" Blog Reader Survey. This concludes our scientific reporting of the results. If I come up with any further conclusions, I will report them in later posts. Or not. Depends on what my definition of "blatant lies" is.