About four weeks ago, I got a phone call that I wouldn’t normally have even answered, but I was in a good mood that day.  As it turned out, the call was from the Nielson Ratings people.  The woman asked me if I knew what the Nielson Ratings were, and I said yes.  She then asked me a bunch of other questions about what kind of shows I watch and how many tv’s we have in the house.  My favorite question was when she asked if we had DVR.  I answered yes, and then she proceeded to clarify that she meant the device that digitally records shows off of tv, and not the hardware that simply plays DVD’s.  While I could have replied, “Is that the thing what plays them small shiny discs?” I composed myself and simply said that I knew what DVR was and that I was sure we had it.  The last question she asked was to see if I was interested in being a Nielson Family for a week and filling out a booklet reporting what shows I watched and the times that I watched them.  I thought this was entertaining due to the sheer volume of shows that I watch everyday as I am currently not employed with nothing else to do.  (If you wish to remedy my lack of employment, please feel free to contact me.)  The woman told me that I would be receiving a booklet for each tv we owned in the near future and that we were to record our show schedule starting February 9th.  By this time, Kip had gotten home from work.  He was confused by the strange look on my face (amusement) and the things I was saying on the phone.  He was especially startled when I got off the phone squealing because the last thing the lady said to me was that in appreciation for our participation in the process they would be mailing me $15 with the booklets.  I was excited because that is like “free money”!

Well, three days ago the booklets arrived, and to our surprise the $15 included was not in check form which we both expected but in the form of a ten and a five!!!  So it really was free money!!  We have officially started recording the shows we watch.  The only problem I have with this whole process is that the Olympics are this week, which means all of the shows that we normally watch are doing reruns this week.  So it isn’t like this is an accurate account of the shows we normally watch.  But I can’t complain because I got $15 for watching tv!!