Register Online as an Unemployed Lion Tamer (humor column)

Lost Journal
Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
November 17, 2005

Register Online as an Unemployed Lion Tamer

Journal Entry: April 17, 2005 (age 35)

I am a minor miner from the Norwegian territories. Or at least that’s what I told The New York Times Web site when they demanded that I register with them before reading the news. To be more specific, I told them that I am an 11-year-old CEO/chairman of a mining company in Svalbard, an island administered by Norway’s Polar Department of the Ministry of Justice.

Of course, this is not the first time I have been required to pigeonhole myself into a neat little demographic box. Increasing numbers of Web sites exclude anyone who isn’t willing to label themselves in ways that make it easier for marketing spammers to do their job. All this to have the honor of reading small bits of content sandwiched between banner ads, pop-up ads, and animated squirrels cracking open low, low, low mortgage rates.

But today I seized the initiative. Yes, I answered their questions. I just didn’t answer them honestly. It occurred to me that corporations’ widespread use of this marketing technique could be proved pointless and, therefore, unprofitable, by a populist uprising. If large numbers of people responded to these nosy inquiries with flat-out misinformation, it would throw a deserved monkey wrench into the privacy invasion machine. To that end, I have prepared a number of false personas in advance, for use when I am roadblocked by an online registration form:

	I am an octogenarian snack-packager from Keebler Tree, Nev. My household income varies, depending on the elvish birth rate and the effectiveness of Fudge Stripe product placements in Jackie Chan films.
	I am a middle-aged child actor from Urbana-Buckeystown, Md. I expect to buy eight cars and two-and-a-half ThighMasters in the next year. Oh, and I have rickets.
	I am the Archduke of Cadbury, from Endwell. I married an itinerant tinker, and divorced four times. I heard about your product from my opponent’s winning play in Scrabble.
	I am an albino shepherd from Papua New Guinea. I would like to receive your newsletter, but please use an Etch-A-Sketch, as I am allergic to paper and all manner of File Transfer Protocols.
	I am a shirtless mini-golf caddy from Ursa Minor. I work with my hands - and yarn. I would like to meet endomorphic women for marrying and naps.
	I am ageless and formless, and express myself only through the playful whinnies of Shetland ponies. I am a bulwark against the void. And I have a basement loft with a breezeway to rent in my colonial brownstone.

If I can get others to join my little rebellion, we may stymie Big Brother’s efforts to know everything about us. As an added bonus, our email inboxes will be filled with much more interesting spam. Black-market Viagra ads and winning lottery notifications will be replaced by emails targeting our expressed interests in canine haberdashery, spinal fluid, and decorative lint-trap treatments.


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