I Am Adding a 41st Question to Our Intake Form, and I Blame Ohio

Brackenmoss & Daughters Introductions will ask every new client whether they are assembling a successor, effective Monday, after reports that Rep. Jim Jordan is laying groundwork for a leadership run.

Brackenmoss & Daughters Introductions, 14 Tallow Lane, will add a forty-first question to its client intake form on Monday, 19 October: Are you, at present, assembling a successor? The change follows Thursday's CNN report that Representative Jim Jordan is quietly laying the groundwork for a run at GOP leader, a post held by Mike Johnson, who has said he intends to keep it. I made the decision at 7:10 this morning, and I, Odalie Brackenmoss, Senior Matchmaker, stand behind it on the record. The Daughters voted yes, 2 to 0, and the third Daughter was at the dentist.

The firm's figures are plain. Since 2019 we have made 1,206 introductions. In 83 of the couplings that later failed, one party was found to have been recruiting support for a replacement while still seated at the table. The pattern never varies. A second sitting at Fennick's. A pleasant question about your sister's availability. A partner who says his full attention remains on the current arrangement and that he supports it entirely. We have buried 83 of these. Not one came with a warning label.

The front line reached my desk Thursday at 9:40, in the person of Mr. Brandel Quillfoot, 54, file 0731, who laid the clipping on the blotter and asked whether his intended, Mrs. Verna Dankmoor, had "done a Jordan." I could not tell him. Our form had no box for it. Casualties for the morning: one teacup, one appointment, a quarter of an hour of Mr. Quillfoot's composure. nobody on this street has ever been sure who is next in line for anything. Mrs. Dankmoor, reached by telephone at 11:05, said she had no successor and would like her deposit back.

The Form

Question 41 is a yes-or-no with a line for up to three names. A client who answers yes is not turned away. The Bureau is not unreasonable. He is placed on the Waiting List, Category C, and introduced only to clients who have also answered yes, so that everyone at the table is lying about the same thing. Clients answering no will be asked to initial.

The objections arrived by 9:00. Mr. Hobbleby of Quarry Row says the question is intrusive. Mrs. Orlic says it is long overdue. The Daughters have asked that the record show the firm takes no position on House Republicans, the Ohio delegation or the minority leader's chair, and that Question 41 applies equally to everyone, including the clergy.

The real cost is the paper. Forty questions fit on one sheet, front only. Forty-one do not. The new question lands alone on page two, under a header and above a signature line, and the two sheets must be held together. I priced the reprint at 1,400 forms, 11 cents a sheet, $154 for the extra pages.

The stapler is at number 16. Dunmore borrowed it on 3 March 2024, for one afternoon.