The Census Takers

The Census Takers

This is a fictional story based on the fact that my wife is one of the Enumerators doing the Census in our area. Most of the statements regarding the Census are accurate as best I could gleam as I didn't want to question her too closely to make her curious as to why I was asking. It's just something to entertain you and amuse my for the putting it together. Have a great day, wear a mask when you are out and be safe. To the story...

The Census...it made my life a living hell...for a while anyway. And in reality it wasn't really the Census, it was the fact that Genevieve (Genni or Vieve) decided she wanted to work to put some extra money in our checking account. She was always looking for part-time jobs since she had retired from full-time retail store management. She is 66 headed toward 67 but doesn't look her age. Her face has 'smile lines' at the corners of her eyes but otherwise she doesn't have lines. She's put on a few pounds since retirement but she still has a figure with a small waist on her just over 5' frame and her hips flare nicely. What draws men's attention is her 36D chest. She doesn't dress flamboyantly, she's actually rather conservative in her daily dress. Having retired she spends a lot of time in sweats both shirts and pants. This was also true whenever she wasn't working prior to retirement.

My name is Greg and I'm Genni's husband and friend for the last 47 years. I'm a couple years older than Genni who I met in college. We dated off and on, mostly on throughout her four years of college. After she graduated we married that summer, had a couple kids within the first 6 years and went through ups and downs and we got to her retirement. And we had to re-adjust to being empty-nesters and spending loads more time together. It was a little touchy in the first 5 or 6 months but we settled into a comfortable routine.

Genni had applied in February but the pandemic hit and she didn't hear anything until August. Before the stay-at-home order came down she had an interview then she'd been photographed and finger-printed for her background check. Then she didn't hear anything. At that point in August she got 3 calls in 4 days and she started training which had morphed into virtual with videos and computer-based tests. There were a couple conference calls, one lasting 3 hours. She was paid through all of this.

Around August 21^st she got all her supplies of paperwork ID badge, Census shoulder bag and the smartphone. She then had to go through some formatting of the phone and whatever. I stayed clear as she gets annoyed if I hang around while she's doing stuff for work.

By the end of August she was going out and working each day. The days were p to her as far as hours and Genni seemed to be happy each day. She related some of the people's she had talked with. During the early part of the second week of September she mentioned she had met a few enumerators working the same area she had been assigned.

Each enumerator got a list of addresses each morning and they'd go to those addresses to find out what the situation was there. Genni had found several abandoned houses with notices from the post office. She had found an address without a house which she marked as 'does not exist'.

The enumerators, one woman and two guys, Vieve met were from another county about 3 hours away. She said they had told her they were staying at the Best Western downtown and the Census was paying for the rooms & meals as well as their work time. We live near a city, not too large about 150,000 people with surrounding suburbs. We live a couple miles from the city center and I have walked into town to meet Genni when she was working. We'd met and gone to dinner a couple times before we came home.

Each evening Genni would post her availability for the following day. She was taking Wednesdays and Sundays off to break up the week. She was posting available time as 10 to 7:30 but had to get OT approved each time she went over 8 hours per day. As far as I knew she had never been denied the OT. I was packing her snacks and a travel mug of water for her each day and she was coming home for 'lunch' which was around 2 each afternoon. She'd spend around 45 minutes home then go back to work. Her assigned addresses were getting further away from home and by Friday of the second week she expressed doubts about coming home for lunch. Saturday she only spent 33 minutes home before she had to start back for her assignment.

Sunday morning was a very nice start to the day. She told me to take half a Sildenafil around 6 in the morning and we cuddled and played for the better part of an hour. We had breakfast then did some errands including grocery shopping. We spent time talking and playing some cards. We caught up with both kids and their children, our grandkids. In the evening we cuddled some more then I left her to watch shows she had on the DVR.

Monday morning I was up at 5:15 and wandering the internet. Genni had asked me to make sure she was up by 7:30 so she could do all her stuff and be ready to leave at 10:01. She backed out of the garage at 10 on the dot and put the car in park to enter her 1^st address. She said she was headed out about 7 miles away. She said she was going to be working out that direction, the western part of the county and she wasn't coming home for lunch. I wasn't to expect her before 7 and it might go to 7:30.

I had made a ham and Swiss sandwich, cut it in half and bagged separately. It had been the way she had taken it when she was managing the dollar store. She could eat half and then eat the other half later. She had her snacks: baby carrots, Hershey's Minis milk chocolate & Mr. Goodbar, a Sargento mozzarella stick and some Cheez-it crackers. She had taken two travel mugs of water as well.

Genni got home at 7:22 and I greeted her with a peck on the cheek and took her lunch bag and handled that. She sat at the kitchen table and did her paperwork. She changed and had a bowl of ice cream. Then we played some cards, I showered and we went to our separate rooms. She went to watch TV and I was on the desktop computer.

Tuesday was a repeat with her gone all day and virtually no deviation in the evening. Wednesday was another repeat except that after she did her paperwork she took a shower saying she 'felt yucky' and wanted to clean up.

Thursday was her day off and she didn't come out of the bedroom until almost 8. She greeted me and asked if I wanted to cuddle and play. I agreed and we had a nice time. It was a little out of the usual once-a-week routine but I didn't mind at all! We had breakfast and then dressed to run errands as she said she needed gas and she liked me to handle the pump. We played cards and then she said she wanted to take a nap.

I wandered into the garage to clean up her car a bit. I treated the windows with RainX, checked her windshield washer fluid and emptied the trash bag on the back of her seat. There were several tissues and a stiff piece of paper in the bag. I looked at the paper and saw a parking stub for the Best Western in town from Wednesday afternoon time-stamped from 4:47 to 7:18! She hadn't said anything about going to the hotel in town for a meeting or anything like that. In fact she had mentioned she had been near Silverdale in the afternoon. She had said how picturesque it was out there. She had mentioned a road just below a ridge where she could look out and see taller hills in the distance and how pretty it had been. This didn't fit with that parking stub at all!

I stood there wondering what she was doing in the hotel in the late afternoon. I had no way to check on her hours since the Census phone was locked and then there was the second password to get to the Census stuff. I didn't know how to bring it up in casual conversation either!

I thought back to the morning and realized she was wet when we started playing and she hadn't had an issue with getting her G-spot massager into her pussy. I hadn't given it much thought but she had moaned as it went in, that hadn't happened before. I wasn't sure what to do about what I had found.

Friday morning she was up and moving without my having to rouse her. She was out the door at 10 on the dot and said, "I'll see you by 9:30 tonight, love you." Her window was going up so I waved as she backed out of the garage. My day wasn't productive bit I did a lot of thinking.

I went up to the corner and got a bus into town for 4PM. I went into Dunkin' and got a small hazelnut and sat for 20 minutes. Since Genni could spot me way before I'd see her I wanted to wait some time before walking over to the Best Western and checking the parking lot. And there it was, her Pilot was parked in the lot, the last row away from the street. I had my keys so I got into the 'trunk' and settled in to wait.

I think I dozed off because the clunk of the locks opening startled me. I waited to see what would happen, my plan was to get out of the Pilot whenever she got home. She left the lot and started driving home. I heard her Bluetooth over the front speakers and my voice identifying the landline and asking for a message to be left.

"Hi honey, I'm about 10 minutes from home and I'll see you soon, love you bye." I was thinking 'yeah you love the stupid trusting shmuck you're married to but you're going to get a surprise when you pull into the garage.' She was actually humming a tune as she drove home to see me! Her phone rang again she answered, a male voice, "Gen that was fun, can we do it again tomorrow, just you and me? We don't need Roger and Chrissy, just us."

"Well, I guess so Al, you did really feel good in me. Yeah sure tomorrow will work, I'll change my availability when I get home to say 4:30?"

"Yeah, that'll work great. Tell your hubby you have a meeting and you'll be in by 8:30 or so. We can have a light meal in the room."

"Okay, I'll see you than, bye." She disconnected and a minute later I felt the bump as she drove over the curb into the driveway. She pulled into the garage and shut the motor off and unlocked the doors. I hit the hatch open button on the remote. I heard her say, "What the heck" as I rolled out of the 'trunk' and walked to the driver's side door. I hit the button for the hatch so it would go back down.

She was sitting there looking at me. Her mouth was open and I pulled the door open and said, "Well, you might as well come inside and pack some clothes so you can go back to the Best Western and spend the night. I'll be working on the divorce papers." She was still sitting there as I walked into the house. Genni came in a couple minutes later, I heard her from my seat at the desktop computer. She called me and I didn't bother to answer her. She came walking into the room and walked up behind me. She put her hands on my shoulders while saying, "Honey can we talk, please?"

"Don't touch me Genevieve. Not after where your hands have been a little while ago. Don't ever touch me again." Genevieve moaned and walked out of the room.

Greg downloaded the necessary forms and filled them out. He paid the fee with their only credit card and printed the 3 copies. He then scanned one copy into the computer to save if he needed to print more copies. Since he didn't have actual proof of adultery he used irreconcilable differences as the reason for the divorce.

Greg left the 'computer room' which held a full bed he'd been sleeping in since Genni complained about his snoring. He wondered if this 'sleep divorce' had contributed to her departure from their wedding vows. Genevieve was on the couch, sniffling and looking at nothing. He sat on the loveseat and handed Vieve a copy of the papers. Genni looked at what they were and just sobbed, "I'm sorry Greg. It wasn't planned, it just happened."

"Really, so you were on the clock for the Census while you were in the hotel screwing around with those three? Wouldn't that constitute a misdemeanor or a felony of some kind? Larceny comes to mind and as a federal crime no less."

"Well...uh....no we weren't on the clock."

"So you changed your availability last night at some time so it was planned that you'd go to the hotel....what did you expect to do there, play checkers?" Genevieve blushed but didn't answer his question. "Plus you were going to go back tomorrow while I thought you were working then going to a meeting you'd have said was work related. So Genevieve it was going to be an ongoing thing with your new guy Al."

"But it was just fun sex....nothing more Greg. You weren't supposed to find out about it, I'm sorry Greg, really sorry."

"It was a lot more....it's called betrayal Genevieve and this is my response. I'll be moving out as soon as I can find somewhere else."

Epilogue

Greg moved out and they went to court. Genevieve asked for marriage counseling and the judge ordered 8 sessions. At the beginning of the 5^th session Greg said, "This is a waste of our time and money. I will never trust her again because she was a willing participant and she had planned to meet one guy again the following day. I'll never reconcile but if you need to waste the time and money I'll just sit here for the next 5 ours of sessions.

The therapist looked at Vieve and said, "It's up to you but I think youhave Greg's honest feelings and I'll tell the judge that I don't think it would work if the divorce isn't granted."

The court date was set and when we returned the judge seemed to understand my position so we got the divorce. It was a small wave of upset in the family but neither would tell the kids what had prompted their eventual divorce. Greg would simply say, "It's between your mom and me" and that would be all.

Genevieve finally admitted to their daughter that she had made a big mistake and she'd gotten caught and Greg wouldn't and probably never would forgive her. They didn't interact at parties for the grandkids except for a 'hello' which was civil enough but that was about it.

Neither of them found someone to share their life with although Genni had dated a few people she could never find anyone that seemed to match her interests or would have matched Greg's devotion to her. Greg, being a more introverted person as he aged never even bothered looking for female companionship. He had his books and the internet to while away his time when he wasn't talking to friends on the phone.

THE END