You do not call me anymore?

AUTAR KAW

Guest Column
St Petersburg Times
November 17, 2006

It is the day after elections, and I feel lonely. Unknown callers on my caller ID have suddenly stopped calling to tell me how great their brother, sister, daughter, or son is.

I felt needed and now I have been categorically dumped. They did not even have the courtesy to send Shannon Doherty?

Everyone begged me to send them to Tallahassee or downtown Tampa; a few wanted to go to Washington, D.C., too. Do they not know it is already freezing up there in D.C., and it is not just Nancy Pelosi inching her way to the Speaker’s chair?I think I was too naïve to believe that they were my friends. Whenever I picked the phone, these unknown callers would not start talking to me until I said hello. One of them did talk without me saying anything, but it must have been my unmistaken heavy panting from running to the phone that must have activated his recorded message.

Talk about stalking. When they did not have my attention on the phone, they sent subliminal messages to me via TV. Negative campaign commercials reminded me that gossiping is a sin, but how else would I know – who has off-shore accounts (Who doesn’t); who is in the pockets of insurance companies (Who isn’t); who is a socialite (Wearing a red sweater disqualified her); whether the father is running or is it his son (Does it matter); how much we need three generations of county judges (Haven’t we learned from the Kennedys yet).

But, it is the voters who have outsmarted our politicians and I tell them – You did a “heckuva” of a job. With a Democratic house, an almost split Senate and a Republican president, they assured gridlock. It is gridlock in Congress when things have gone well for our country.

CITATION: Autar Kaw, “You do not call me anymore”, Guest Column, November 17, 2006, last accessed at http://autarkaw.com/you-do-not-call-me-anymore/