“Honey, the census arrived.”

“It has? Where?”

“I left it on the stairs for you.”

“Yay! Census! At last!”

“… ok, why are you so happy about the census arriving?”

“Well, it only comes once a decade. This is my first chance to fill it in!!”

“You’ve never filled in a census before?”

“Well, previously my father always dealt with them. He filled them in when I was almost 1 and 10 and 20 and 30.”

“Ok. Congratulations, you have your first census. Do we have to answer all the nosy questions and send it back by the way?”

“Yes. We get fined a thousand quid if we don’t.”

“Fill it in.”

“Right… ok, here’s the form… we have two people in this house. Who gets to be Person One and who’s going to be Person Two?”

“What’s the difference?”

“There isn’t one. The form was address to ‘the occupant’.”

“Ok. I’m older but you’ve lived in the UK for longer. You be Person One.”

“Oh joy. Right, where’s a pen… ok… name… address…. Date of birth. Nationality. Welsh. Born in England. That’ll puzzle the buggers.”

“You know strictly speaking that makes you English.”

“I will respond to that foul slur by deploying my Duke of Wellington quote.”

“Oh that – ‘If a dog is born in a stable that does not make him a horse!’”

“Yup. Education… damn I seem to have one. Religion. Hmmm.”

“Don’t act coy, you know exactly what to put there. You’ve been waiting for the census just for that bit haven’t you?”

“Who me?”

“Yes you. Is there enough room for it?”

“Yup. ‘Religion: Jedi Knight’. Hee hee hee…”

“Why does that amuse you so much?”

“I just imagine someone looking at a copy of this in a hundred years time and marveling at it.”

“What, Jedi Knight?”

“Yeah… there’ll probably be a Jedi cult by then.”

“And you think there isn’t one now?”

“Good point. Besides, I have to write ‘Jedi Knight’ because there isn’t enough space for ‘militant atheist who thinks that all priests are lying bastards’. Are you still going to write ‘Pastafarian’?”

“I’m thinking about it. The world needs more pirates.”

“Never say that near my office. Lloyds of London is just up the road and you’ll get lynched. They hate pirates there. Right… work details… damn, I’ve forgotten my office postcode. Google is a wonderful invention. Right… dependents… hum, we can’t put the cats there can we?”

“The cats? Dependents? No!”

“Are you sure? It might be fun!”

“Honey, because then we’d have to send them to school.”

“…”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, I was just imaging our cats at school. Couldn’t work very well. Tiggy would be stuck in Reception level forever.”

“Doesn’t work like that, you can’t hold them back He’d end up in High School.”

“Right, that really wouldn’t work. Right. Finished.”

“That was fast.”

“Well it is my first time.”