"You Are Cordially Invited to the White House"

I came home from school the other day feeling surly, after spending several hours lost in the hell-scape that is the human foot (How is it POSSIBLE that the foot is more complex than the HAND?!). My routine is to pull into the complex, pull over to the mailboxes, get out, futz with the key until it finally gives and the mailbox opens, grab the wad of junk mail, get back in the car and drive to our condo and park in the garage.

On this particular day, as is typical, I received a newspaper-sized bulletin of ads and coupons (which without exception always goes straight to the recycler), a bank statement, an electricity bill, and an envelope of which I was immediately suspicious.

It was creme colored, linen texture. Not your typical business envelope. Heavy. I would have thought it a wedding invitation if wasn't business-sized. I almost blew it off after looking at the font in which my name was printed on the envelope, thinking it was one of those time-share scams that tries to rope you in by making you think you got a real honest-to-God personal letter. Then I looked at the return address, which said, "The White House/Washington, D.C., 20500". I almost wrote it off immediately, thinking that it was some kind of a mortgage scam as per "recent legislation from the White House".

Then I remembered, I wrote a letter TO the White House a few months back.

I wrote to detail my family's extensive medical history, the social and financial consequences of those experiences and to regale the powers-that-be about how it's a total bitch (Yeah. Let's just call it what it is) to get individual insurance for myself because of alllllll the cancer (and how my school provides NO insurance for me, but I'm too old to be on my parents' insurance plan and I can't get it through my husband because...blah blah blah). I wrote to plead the case for a single-payer option. I wrote because I hoped like hell mine could be one of the 10 letters that makes it to the Oval Office, out of the near 10,000 received, every day.

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I couldn't believe that I'd gotten a reply. I'd written to Bush, too, and never received anything back. So, in the 60 seconds or so it takes to drive from the mailboxes to the garage, park, and haul all my stuff inside, I'd gone from "this is a scam" to "I bet it's an invitation! I bet they want to meet me in person! I might be able to speak to Congress myself! Oh, I'll have to get a sweater set to wear so I can look like Michelle." etc. etc. etc.

If you've ever watched "Scrubs" you'll have an idea of how out of control my fantasies can get in about 3 seconds.

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I ripped open the envelope as quickly as I could, while still preserving both the return address and the postmark and pulled a heavy weight creme-colored paper, embossed with the Seal of the President of the United States.

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Alas, it was not a handwritten note asking for the pleasure of my company at either the White House OR Camp David (lame!). It was no invitation to speak on the floor of Congress (damn!). It was, however, a thank you for speaking my thoughts about the need for an overhaul of our medical system, a reassurance that they're not screwing around this time with reform, and a short anecdote about how he helped his mother with the stacks of insurance forms and pre-existing conditions at the end of her life.

The jury is still out on whether the signature is a gel-pen or if it is a template that was laser printed on. I really don't want to admit the latter, but if it is a template, it's crazy well done--it does look like it has pressure points.

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And just in case, I'll keep it in my acid-free box of important whatnots I've collected over the years.