I don't know why I keep doing Market Research. I got hooked a few years ago and now I can't stop. I've tried following Nancy Regan's suggestion of just saying "No" but it hasn't worked. It can't be the money that keeps me coming back - I mean I earn a decent income, we're not exactly on "Struggle Street" as Alan Jones would put it. The $60 or $70 I get from each session is nice, it's a bit of luxury money which can be blown on a meal out or on a pair of shoes without a tiniest amount of guilt, but it certainly doesn't put us into the next tax bracket (especially since this "gift" always comes in cold, hard cash without any papertrail connecting me with the Tax Office).

It's certainly not the fact that these MR excursions usually mean travelling here, there and everywhere and getting home way past my bedtime. I have parked in dark alleys in Parramatta, walked half a dozen blocks through the city late at night and on one memorable occassion had a bunch of teenage boys throw water at me (long story... don't ask!) as I walked to a session at Ultimo.

I can only surmise that what keeps me coming back is the thing that I hate the most about Market Research - the freaks! It's a love/hate relationship and one that's very hard to break off.

Take last night for example. The freakiness started early, at the phone interview stage in fact. In the good old, innocent days of Market Research they would just call me up, confirm age, employment and marital status, ask a basic question or two about whether I ate pasta or used the phone and then off I'd go. Recently just getting through the phone interview can be a harrowing and often unrewarding experience. Having limited wartime experience myself I would nevertheless compare it to walking through a minefield. The questions go on for half an hour and one wrong answer and you've blown it.

E.g. Interviewer: "Do you eat XYZ cereal?"
Me: "Yes."
Inteviewer: "How often do you eat it?"
Me: (starting to panic) "A few times a week..."
Interviewer: "Can you be more specific?"
Me: (what the *&#$ is the right answer!!!) "Twice a week..."
Interviewer: "Sorry, we only need people who eat it three times a week. We'll call if another opportunity arises."

Oh, how I mentally kick myself. IF ONLY I had said THREE... I should have known that two was not enough and four was probably too many. Then I start hating myself for even staying on the phone with these modern day inquisitors for more than five minutes. "Why am I such a sucker?" I ask myself. Next time I'll just tell to go &*$# themselves, that's what I'll do!!!!

To get into last night's session I had to survive two gruelling interviews. The first was quite bizarre and involved the very helpful girl interviewer feeding me a lot of the right answers (they must have been getting desperate). Then two days later they rang to confirm my "answers" and to put the icing on the cake asked me what three famous people I would have over for dinner and why. This might seem like a fun dinner party conversation topic but they had rung while I was having lunch with friends and I was tucked into the corner of their living room, being curiously observed, as I frantically tried to think of who I'd invite to my fictional dinner party and why. For the first few terrifying seconds I couldn't even think of anyone famous. My idiotic thought process ran along the lines of: I would have John Cusack... but no, I can't, he smokes, I couldn't have him over for dinner because I hate disgusting smokers. Oh shit, who else? Um, um, um... Finally I blurt out: "Gus Van Sant." What the...? Sure I think he's a great director (except for that diabolical "Psycho" remake) but I had never considered him someone to covet as a dinner party guest. Then I was on a roll... "Kevin Smith" I almost yell. Oh yeah, he'd be cool. Then I stumble... I can't have another director, we'd be director top heavy and that wouldn't make for a fun dinner party. Oh MY GOD... who else? My brain races around like a rat on speed. Out of nowhere "Billy Connolly" drops in. The relief is unimaginably wonderful. I can hear by the young man's voice on the other end of line that he is less than impressed with my choices but I "pass" and he tells me he'll email the details to me on Monday. To get this far I have spent a good half hour on the phone and have added at least 10 gray hairs from the stress of "getting it right".

It gets to last night and I soooo not want to go. I'm home, I'm cosy... the last thing I want to do is drive to North Sydney and talk shit about pay TV (the theme for last night's MR session). But the draw of the freaks pulls me in... I don't want to go but the curiosity is too hard to fight. So there I am.. the invite said to arrive at 7:55 pm for an 8:00 pm start. We don't start until 8:20 pm - I am getting tired and annoyed and we haven't even started yet.

As we go around the table with the obligatory brief introductions I start to get drawn into the world of the losers around the table (hey, I'm not a loser... I'm just conducting a valid social experiment). There's always one stand out but luckily we had two last night. There was Yummy Mummy (hereto thereafter to be referred to as YM) and Stupid Anti-American Cow (SAAC). YM introduced herself by talking about how much breastfeeding, giggle, giggle, she was doing right now and SAAC told us all about her wholistic wellness centre which she had recently opened with her husband - did anyone want a business card? Now I've got as much time for wholistic wellness centres as I have for Seventh Day Adventists knocking on my door at 8:00 am on a Sunday morning so I'm probably not the best judge but this bird was no advertisement for any sort of "wellness", wholistic or otherwise. She was one very, very fat lady (not being rude, just the facts) and she had that lovely make up technique professionally known as caking it on with a trowel. As I was lucky enough to sit next to her I got to examine the concrete like texture of her face and it was not a pretty sight.

YM was just a dingbat, no excuses. I love the people who are full of useless, meandering stories which have nothing to do with the task at hand. We are all tired, bored and talking shit about a subject we really don't care about just to get our 70 bucks and here is YM telling us all about her holiday to Africa. Here's some news for you YM - we don't care! Shut up! Then to really prove her credentials as a MENSA candidate she starts complaining about how the Discovery channel is now "too far away" since they've gone digital. I can only assume she meant that being a channel with a high number it was "far away" when one was flicking through the channels. But who knows what goes on in the void known as YM's brain...

SAAC was a real joy. One of my pet peevs at the moment is that so many Australians are on the "we hate America/Americans" bandwagon. I don't even want to get started on that one... But SAAC just went on and on. Since we were previewing and commenting on new shows they were trialling for some of the pay TV channels some of them happened to be American shows. One in particular was a documentary series featuring a charismatic American guy whose dream was to create the first US based performance motorbike to challenge the Japanese and European bikes at the world's MotoGP races. Despite myself I really found I enjoyed the segment we got to watch. This guy was passionate, articulate and not too hard on the eye. The documentary style was engaging and interesting, great music, etc. So what does SAAC have to say? "I hated all the American flag waving, it just makes me sick!" Yeah, it's so offensive when peolple are patriotic and proud of their country... how dare they! Finally I could take no more! "We don't all hate Americans, so can we just get on with it!" I snapped much to (sad) SAAC's surprise.

Because of all the stupid, irrelevant and just plain boring side-trips into Freakland we took the session didn't end until 10:40 pm - 40 minutes later than anticipated. As I walked to my car through the dark, lonely streets of North Sydney I contemplated better, easier, more fun ways of earning $70 for four hours of my time and came up with prostitution. Surely sex with a total stranger would not only yield more than $70 for four hours (what are the going rates these days?) but would also be more enjoyable and thought provoking than listening to the moronic opinions of eight drongos who have nothing better to do on a Thursday night (remember ... social experiment...). Maybe I should just live with the guilt of spending $60 of "real" money on a Thai take away and just get on with my life...