A Special Invitation for a Special Girl

It arrived in a thick, cream-colored envelope with my name carefully inscribed upon the front, and Dick Cheney’s in the upper left corner. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I hadn’t realized that the Vice-President of the United States knew me, or that he’d even had time between heart attacks to send out party invitations.

I opened the envelope and discovered that I had been invited to The President’s Dinner in Washington, D.C. Cheney confided that “a special place of honor has already been reserved for you to recognize your steadfast support of President Bush.”

Like any other person in this situation, I automatically glanced at the top of the letter to make sure it was still addressed to me. Was I living in an alternate reality, where writing an essay entitled “President Bush is a Pancake” constituted steadfast support? Because if I was, I needed to trot out to the convenience store right away to pick out my winning lottery ticket.

The letter still had my name and address underneath the “Dick Cheney” letterhead, but now I also noticed that the greeting was “Dear Jane.” Wasn’t that awfully familiar of Dick? After all, it wasn’t as though he had invited me to a dinner with George and Laura. No, it was “the President and Mrs. Bush” for them.

I decided to let his familiarity pass for now, and proceeded with the letter. Even if I couldn’t attend, Dick still wanted me to “accept the honor of becoming an Honorary Co-Chairman of The President’s Dinner.” How swell! I wondered what this position would require — perhaps a few small formal gatherings, maybe even tea and scones.

It wasn’t until I got to the second letter enclosed in the envelope that I understood what being Honorary Co-Chairman involved. Senator George Allen had provided a short summary letter, thoughtfully typed on plain white paper so as not to be mixed up with the more important creamy stationary of the Vice-President. I quickly skimmed Senator Allen’s letter, and found that if I couldn’t attend, he wanted me to “support the President by making a special contribution of $1,000, $500, $250, $150, or even $50 and becoming an Honorary Co-Chairman of The President’s Dinner.”

What, and not even any scones? The disappointment was immense. The letter was signed, “Sincerely, Senator George Allen, Co-Chairman, The President’s Dinner.” I wondered how much they’d asked him to “donate” before letting him get his stationary printed up.

But back to Dick’s invitation. Apparently Dick assumed that I knew what The President’s Dinner was, but he wanted to tell me anyway. It was “the ‘kickoff’ for the fall campaign season and the cornerstone of the President’s personal effort to maintain and expand our very slim Republican majority in the House and to regain our Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.”

Several things were troubling about this sentence. First, the damned quotes around “kickoff.” I’d never been crazy about people using quotes around words for emphasis, as in:

Fresh “Just in” Seafood

or even

Low, low rates! “Bad credit ok”.

Quotation marks around words, when not used to indicate someone else’s words, should be used to show an ironic meaning, and not “emphasis”.

The next problem I had was with President Bush’s “personal effort.” Hmm. The letter was sent by Cheney, on Cheney stationary, and the mailing and printing costs all paid for by a fundraising committee that probably involved neither Cheney nor Bush. Did Bush maybe lick all the envelopes shut, or had my friend Dick meant to put his kickoff quotes around personal instead?

But worst of all was the use of the word Repub –, Republi– I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. By now I was starting to get the feeling that this invitation had been meant for a different Supersonic Jane, the alternate reality Jane. You know, the one with the challenging job, low cholesterol, and bucketloads of lottery winnings.

There were still two more pages of Dick’s letter, but I couldn’t finish reading. In the last Presidential election, I’d voted for Ralph Nader. But for every position besides President, I had gone straight down the ballot form and selected every Democrat I could find, with an especially strong preference for the female Democrats. I didn’t have the most intelligent way to vote, but at least I had a system, and one which had been grossly misinterpreted by Cheney.

The Senator’s letter was a mere page compared to Cheney’s three. Besides clearing up the confusion over the Honorary Co-Chairman position, the Senator also let us know that tickets to this shindig cost $2,500 each, or we could “purchase a table of ten for $25,000.”

If I’d had that kind of money, I would have thrown my own party but still emailed the invites.

The next insert in the envelope was the actual RSVP card. There was a box for “Yes, I will attend”, one for “No, but I will donate” and another one for “Yes, I will attend with my nine other Republican friends for a rip-roaring drunken orgy.” Strangely, they hadn’t included a box for my choice of not attending or donating.

I squeezed in my own hand-drawn box after their choices and before the credit card information request, and then contemplated what to write. I considered various renditions of “fuck off” followed by the link to my Pancake essay, but worried that I might be arrested for terrorism and anti-American actions. I wasn’t so much concerned for myself, but for CJay who would undoubtedly be annoyed about having to bail me out of the pokey.

And his family wouldn’t be thrilled, either. His grandparents would almost certainly stop buying me government bonds for Christmas, and his parents would wonder if I was making up an excuse to avoid attending family gatherings (”She says she’s in jail. Those kids just don’t want to see us.”). His sister, meanwhile, would be perplexed as to why I would do anything to risk being in a place with no mirrors, makeup, or curling iron.

There would be less of an outcry in my family, who would be resigned to the matter and perhaps even mildly surprised that something like this hadn’t happened earlier. My mother has received lectures from me about how they should be proud to have raised a daughter who won’t tolerate injustice, and while she hasn’t exactly burst into applause after these speeches, she also hasn’t disowned me yet. But the entire family knows quite well that the only method of dealing with me is to keep me away from anyone potentially troubling, which may be why my sister’s boyfriend has stopped attending events at which I would be present.

Too bad Cheney hadn’t consulted with my family before sending his lengthy letter to me.

After checking off my box, I carefully wrote beside it, “I am not a Republican. Please do your homework next time, and don’t send me these things.”

It wasn’t elegant, but it was the best I could do on such short notice. And after all, Dick had been thoughtful enough to pre-pay the postage on the return envelope for me.

Posted by: ssjane | May 8, 2002 | 4:56 pm
Posted in: Rants