Blogs
A Special Focus Group
By Dean Norman
“Hello.”
“Hello. How are you today?”
“I don’t want to buy...”
“No no no. I’m not selling anything. I just want...”
“I thought my sister might be calling me, so I picked up...”
“Oh, I think I know your sister.”
“You do? Who are...”
“I just want a minute of your time. Honest. Just one little minute. Not a second more than one minute.”
“Do you know that my sister is...”
“First let’s talk about this. You are part of a very special focus group.”
“What fu**in’ group?”
“Focus group. Fo cuss group. People who don’t answer opinion polls.”
“You got that right. I got no time for that nonsense.”
“Well, what I want to know is why you don’t answer opinion polls?”
“Because I got no time for that bullsh**. The polls get it wrong a lot.”
“Yes, they do. And the reason the polls get it wrong is because so many people don’t answer opinion polls. So we want to find out what the people who don’t answer opinion polls would say if they did answer opinion polls. For example, if you had to choose between the candidates for Governor in the next election, who would you vote for? Or who are you inclined to vote for at this time, if you haven’t already made up your mind? You see, if we can get the opinions of people who don’t answer opinion polls, then we can finetune the election predictions and...”
Click.
— Dean Norman
Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards, The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.