50 Calls

Dear Dan and Andrew and Rob and Aneesa and Jake,

Hello, it's me again. The woman who calls the congressman's office nearly every weekday to complain or comment on whatever political issue made yesterday's headlines. As an intern, you have the unfortunate job of picking up the phone. 

From my pile of non-responses

I know you're tired of my daily calls. I can hear it in your voices when you assure me that you'll pass my concerns to the congressman - even before I tell you my opinion on the issue I've called about that particular day. 

I know you're bored with my calls. I can tell by the way the ice clinks in your plastic tumbler as you sip your drink while I'm ranting, then coolly tell me you're just an office worker. When your response is flat and monotone, when I can hear your exhale echo in the handset speaker, when you say you've written down all my concerns, I doubt your truthfulness.

I bet when the phones ring around 9:15 every week day, you all glance at each other and roll your eyes, or argue about whose turn it is to listen to my voice. I've heard the unmistakable thuds and creaks when you move the ancient phone handset from one hand to the other. I imagine you're signaling each other that your favorite constituent is calling. You've probably given me a demeaning nickname, like Outraged in Ohio or Big Words Bluster. 

Scratch that. You're not even 25 and you grew up on YouTube. You don't know what bluster means.

I bet you dread reading the news on your phone app, because you know you'll be hearing an earful about it the next day, from me, and have to repeat again that you can't speak on behalf of the congressman.  

You're probably sorry you ever accepted that job in the office of a U.S. Representative. Maybe you're beginning to rethink your major of political science or law or public policy, now that you've experienced first-hand the waves of rage and shock that can be unleashed in constituents.

Politics is more than laws you read in text books and speeches delivered from behind podiums. It turns out that every single thing your boss does, or doesn't do, affects a real person, and those people have opinions.

And they are wont to share them, especially during unprecedented abuses of power and repeated disregard for the rule of law.

Honestly, it's not just you who's tired of my daily calls. The dog, who usually naps contentedly in his crate near my desk, is also distressed by my anger. He raises his head from sleep, ears pricked at attention, as though asking if I need him to bite anyone. The birds feasting at the new feeder outside my office window scatter in fear when they hear my loud voice and see my hands pointing furiously in the air at nothing. They probably fly off to tell their bird friends that the new eatery is good, but the atmosphere is concerning. 

"You, lady, are a little bit nuts."

And really, I'm tired of these calls too.

I'm tired of grabbing screenshots of terrible news stories day after day that chronicle the new and more exciting ways politicians are hurting people and trying to break apart the foundations of our country. 

I'm tired of writing a script each morning so I have all my words in order and I know what I mean to say instead of one ongoing, ear-splitting scream. 

I'm tired of more than 50 calls that you and your boss care nothing to hear - calls of outrage, of despair, and of demands to do your job. 

I've used the word "egregious" 12 times, my friends, and that's a few times more than the American public is comfortable with. 

But I don't know how else to prove to Congress that so many of us are deeply dissatisfied, afraid, and anxious for the future of our country and our world. I don't know how to spur our leaders to listen to their constituents and change course before the damage is insurmountable. 

So I'm going to keep marching in my one-person revolution until politics is boring again. 

Thank you for your time. I'll talk to you tomorrow.