Out of all the people in the United States, we, the O’Hara clan, have been recruited to join a highly prestigious and select group of individuals. (And no, it’s not to join the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.)

We have been chosen to become a Neilsen TV Ratings Family.

Ok, so it’s not exactly an elite group — over one million people are selected each year to participate. In fact, given the odds, it’s fairly surprising we haven’t already done this before. Yesterday in the mail we received our television diary. The diary consists of a week’s worth of entries. From this Thursday to the following Wednesday, we are to track and document all the TV programs we watch during that time period. There are even small blanks to denote if the program was watched on VHS, DVD, or DVR. Neat.

You might think that simply the honor of being selected would be enough for most people to fill out the diary and mail it back in, but there is an additional incentive in the bottom of the envelope for those who need one — five bucks! Not in the form of a gift certificate, or a redeemable coupon or a money order — I’m talkin’ five brand new, crisp, one-dollar bills, to spend any way we choose. Score!

(Dropping the sarcasm for a moment, I’ll bet there’s a psychological test somewhere that shows people are more likely to participate in unsolicited surveys when given cash, in advance. I’ll just betcha.)

Anywhoo, as tempting as it is I’m resisting the urge to simply write “SpongeBob SquarePants” on every page and mail the thing back in early.