The dangers of being a census worker

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I wouldn’t have believed this story if it hadn’t happened to someone I know…

A girl with whom I work has a high-functioning 16 year old autistic brother who is normally capable of staying at home alone. Their mom, who works at a local hospital, normally calls home at lunch to check on him (it’s spring break here so he was home from school). Yesterday, she called and there was no answer. Not overly concerned at first, she kept calling at 15 minute intervals. When there was still no answer at 2:30, she left work to go home and check on him.

When she arrived home, she found him standing on the front porch, rocking back and forth saying repeatedly, “I caught one! I caught one! I finally caught one!” She finally got out of him that he had caught - wait for it - a leprechaun. Somewhat concerned, she managed to talk him into the house to discover that the “leprechaun” was actually one very pissed off census taker - who happened to be a little person - whom her son had locked in the coat closet. It’s an older house which has latch handles so there was no way for him to get out. Apparently, he had been locked up since 10:30 that morning.

Unfortunately, he was really pissed off and is pressing charges. I imagine the worst thing that can come of it is that the court says he can no longer be unsupervised, which will cost the family a pretty penny. Hopefully, the judge will see the humor in it and let him off with a warning that leprechauns have rights too and you can’t go locking them in closets.

2

Great story, thanks for sharing.

3

I hate to break it to you, but someone who imprisons people in the closet just because they’re short really can’t be left unsupervised.

4

Per Snopes, this is an old legend.

5

Hmm, I really can’t imagine her lying to me about it. They’re pretty upset about the pending charges.

6

You need a better imagination.

7

I’m seeing the humor in the story, but I don’t think there’s any hope he will be allowed to be left unsupervised after this. I’m not sure he SHOULD be allowed to be unsupervised, after this. He locked a stranger in the closet for more than 4 hours. That’s a pretty serious problem.

8

Hey, the worker got off light. There weren’t any fava beans or a nice chianti involved.

9

From the Snopes page:

I think you’ve been whooshed.

10

Actually, the part that made him really mad was when the boy stole his Lucky Charms.

11

My brother-in-law told us this story had happened to a friend’s sister or something. Sorry to confirm that it’s an urban legend (BIL didn’t believe us either).

12

This one popped up on the radio yesterday, the only difference being that the census worker was imprisoned in a bedroom.

13

Funny story - almost had me going for a minute. Nice try though :stuck_out_tongue:

14

My roomie is a temp census worker, she was laughing too hard to actually answer for about 5 minutes.

They got told in the training class last week about it. It is definitely an urban legend.

15

Maybe you can ask to accompany the family to the hearing. :slight_smile:

16

I hate it when people lie to me - even if it’s funny. I guess I should change my name to Gullible Chick.

17

Actually, “gullible” is not a real word. Look it up.

:cool:

18

I’m with you; your co-worker sounds like an ass.

19

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You had me for about 1/2 a second. You big meanie! :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. :wink: