Census 2006 - So what are we?

We're stuck in some motor inn on the main road of Ballarat and so were only required to fill out a Personal Form.  Ripped off, we only got to answer questions
 about ethnic background, education, employment, and whether or not I did unpaid domestic work (yes, I did tidy up my hotel room that day when I slept in 'til lunch...)  There was that optional question about religion and, not wanting to seem all 2001 and put "Jedi", I just went for the "no religion" option.  Possibly the hardest questions were about how many hours I worked last week (how long was that flight to Hobart again?) and where was I living five years ago (what's the post code for Menora again?) but, besides that, it was disappointingly straightforward.

JPB back home had a more interesting experience:  what is the status of our relationship?  Just eight days shy of our first-date one-year anniversary, his suggestion was to have me down as "rent boy".  Cheeky.  Anyway, it didn't seem enough to cross the "de facto" box; although a simple cross-reference to an earlier question would uncover just as much, it seemed more appropriate to exploit the "other" box to state clearly: "same-sex defacto".  Sure, this is tainted slightly by the notion that such a relationship is an "other".  But what else is there to do?  Apparently there is no questions specifically about orientation so this is it.

In any case, its better than "rent boy": my limit is only five hours a week of domestic work...

On second thoughts, I think we should have just went for de facto.  A computer better understands a marked box than handwritten letters.  Oh well, better luck next time.

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