Unemployed...Again

Well, my job with the Census Bureau has come to an end….at least for now.

The next phase will start in August and we are told that we have a good chance of being called back because we have experience. I doubt this will happen. I think the Government way is to re-invent the wheel, dismantle this temporary bureaucracy, and replace it with another with all new employees.

We were told the job would last ten weeks and it barely made it to five.

So what next? Clearly there is no income to be derived from blogging. I read in the Times yesterday (“Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest”) bloggers are abandoning their little corners of the internet in record numbers. According to a survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million of the 133 million blogs the company tracks have been updated in the past 120 days. “That translates to 95 per cent of blogs being essentially abandoned,” the article reports, “left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream-or at least an ambition-unfulfilled.”

Of course, the major reason for this is failure to attract readers and, even if readers are attracted, the inability to translate that into income. Book deals are few and far between.

Oh well, there is always pooper scooping. Another article in the Times reports that this is a real growth industry with franchises sprouting up that do millions a year in business. The premise is that armed with a pooper scooper you hire yourself out for $12-$15 a week to pick up Fido’s deposits in people’s yards. Apparently, even in these hard times, people are unwilling to pick up their own pet’s crap.

There is even a trade association for these folks: The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists. Companies in the field have clever names like DoodyCalls and Poop Patrol and slogans like “we are number one in the number two business.”

It is claimed that an independent poop professional with 20 or so clients can generate an income of $30,000 a year.

I may take a shot at this. First, I need a name. Doodie Howser, Canine Crapologist, has a classy ring to it. Or how about Dr. Doo-Little? Or The Feces Fanatic? Actually, I am kind of partial to Scat-Man-Doo. If you, dear reader, have any suggestions feel free to unburden yourself, so to speak.

Even though most of the franchises have cute little uniforms (not brown, I hope) for their workers, I would prefer to be incognito. However, I think it is absolutely necessary to have specialized footwear. I have designed shoes that have bald, Teflon coated soles. Take it from someone who has been there, there is nothing worse than trying to dig fresh dog poop out of sneaker treads with a toothpick.

AHA!!! I have just had a Eureka moment. With all of that abandoned bullshit fouling up the internet, there might be a market for a blog pooper scooper. For a low fee, I will wander hosting service sites tidying up the “public remnants” of abandoned dreams. And no special footwear is required!