I’m glad to report that the crisis is over and our government is open for business again! Hooray!

I got all your letters and calls, and though I didn’t exactly answer every single one I did read parts of most of them, so I know the past few weeks were very difficult for you. Thanks for your very graphic suggestions about where I could put things, and how I might atone (personally) for the behavior of some other members of Congress.

In spite of some very direct invitations that you sent me about moving to another district, state or country, I want you to know that I’m staying put and I’m equally certain that we all still think the USA is the greatest country on Earth!

And now comes the really important work – Forgetting Everything That Just Happened. Fortunately, this shouldn’t be hard since our research shows most people are bored by political tiffs and when all is said and done they have no memory of who started it and who got sucker punched. An old mentor of mine once said “You’ll never lose an election by overestimating the ability of a typical voter to totally disregard the most important details.”

And no, I don’t remember who it was that said that.

I guess the lesson here is the same one any craftsman learns – know what your tools can do.

When I was a small child I decided I could get my mother to buy me ice cream by holding my breath. The first few times I tried, it didn’t work. Then one summer day we were down at the lakeshore and there was an ice cream vendor there, and I asked if I could have a cone and she said “No” so I held my breath so long that I actually did black out a little bit, got kind of dizzy, stumbled, and almost fell in the water.

That’s when I found out that while I couldn’t use breath-holding to get ice cream, I COULD use it to make my mother super mad. That was a good lesson – and i realized it was not a very useful tool since I had lots of other ways to make the very same thing happen.

And just like the voters, over time she forgot my ridiculous behavior and kept a fierce love for me deep in her heart. Actually, the voters probably won’t do that, but mothers can be trusted to set aside the silly stuff. Eventually.

I guess my real point is that as bad as this whole episode was, and although it suggests our political system is broken and in spite of the way it left a strong impression that some of our elected officials are spoiled children, at least we don’t have to put up with giant hornets that kill people indiscriminately.

And that’s why the USA is a much better place to live than China!

God Bless America!