I have posted before about my aversion to having my photo taken.  This is documented fact, easily verifiable by a quick check with any of my close friends.  I have one, dear, misguided, but lovable girlfriend who has asked me repeatedly to publish a picture of myself on my blog.  The ones I have posted in my armour apparently do not count.  Because, for warped reasons I don’t understand myself and don’t care to psychoanalyze, I have a hard time denying her anything, I have put a photo up in the “About” section of the blog.  To soften the blow of seeing me, in serious need of hair smoother and a good powder, it’s a pic taken with my far more photogenic son happily munching the lens cap of the Nikon.   It is a testimony to my deep love of my husband that I actually let him TOUCH the D50, let alone take off the lens cap.

The posting of this picture, however, has another motive.  It is a object lesson to the more paranoid of my friends and acquaintances.  I have been privy to more than a few hushed conversations about how much the government and big business knows about our lives, about how much information is collected every time we fill out a marketing form, use our credit cards, or register with an online site.  There seems to be some impression that this information is filed, cross-checked and individually reviewed in some sort of giant cosmic database to which only the FBI, spammers and telemarketers are given the password. 

That the government and corporate marketing entities collect information on us is self-evident.  Anyone who thinks they can fly under the radar and off the grid without living on a self-sustaining commune in rural North Dakota is completely dim.  I am sure there are such people.  I am also pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be one.  I have a deep love affair with my debit card, cell phone, and oh, the joys of internet shopping.

But, as a former employee of the Great Uncle in Washington (and a current contractual lackey), I assure you that every government institution, except perhaps the Congress and White House itself, is understaffed, underfunded and overworked.   No matter how weird and suspicious you think your purchases and telephone conversations are, I assure you they are unlikely to be given loving and individual attention.  And no matter how “directed” marketing research thinks it can tailor the advertisements it longs to bombard you with, they are far, far from being able to hit anything but a rather imperfect median.

Some of the assumptions from their collected data are rather humorous.  I filled a Humulin prescription for my cat, MY CAT, and suddenly started getting diabetes literature in the mail.  And AARP leaflets. 

In graduate school, I listed Kris as my “domestic partner” (after all, we were living together in a committed relationship without marriage, isn’t that the definition?) and was bombarded with gay and lesbian rights literature.

However, by the looks of the “meet black singles in your area” and “enlarge your penis” emails in my junk folder, I am guessing that current marketing research has me pegged as an impotent African-American man.  So much for Big Brother.

Personally, I am going to be happy when they finally get it right.  My junk folder will get a lot slimmer.  So, for all you telemarketers out there:

I am a 41-year-old, liberal, caucasian, married, working mother of one, who lives in rural Arkansas, and likes to dress up in armor and hit people.  I have posted a picture to prove it, and I promise I didn’t steal it off of somebody else’s blog.  Stuff that in your demographic.

Now, let’s see if those Viagra product emails stop coming.  Then I will be a true believer.