I admit I felt a very slight pang of guilt when I sent that letter to my congressmen proposing sending me stimulus money to invest in my terrible bar idea. That’s because the letter would never actually get to the politicians. I knew it was going to be some poor overworked aide who’d have to read my letter, figure out if I’m being earnest or not, and send me a reply. I didn’t feel too guilty, obviously, because if you sign up to work in Congress I figure you deserve all the BS that gets thrown at you. But still, some of them are genuinely nice people, despite what one might conclude after to going to a few happy hours on Capitol Hill.
One of those nice people was visiting Portland this weekend, so I asked her what she’d do if she’d received my letter. She said she’d get annoyed at having to waste time on me and fire off some boilerplate jibber jabber about the stimulus bill. Whoever works in Representative Earl Blumenauer’s office thinks the same way and replied to me this morning. On the off chance you want to read through the whole thing (not recommended), it’s below the break.
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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