Bob McCarty Writes

Below is Part Nine of a series of posts I’m sharing with readers of this blog. A change of pace from my usual writings on humor, politics, culture and capitalism, this series represents the first few chapters of a book I’ve been writing for several months. It draws from my background in the Air Force as well as from my experience in politics and public relations. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to your feedback.

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SCRATCH OFF

By Bob McCarty

Copyright © 2008 Bob McCarty, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, publication or broadcast
or other use of this document without the express permission of Bob McCarty, L.L.C., is prohibited by law.

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The sun came shining through Kastens’ bedroom window at 5:15 a.m., Tuesday, May 1, 2007, waking him from the state of near-sleep he had struggled with for nearly a month. Had it not been for his mission to fulfill his promise to Josh, he might have remained in bed forever. Today, that mission included making a call to Senator Slott’s office in Washington, D.C., during his 11 o’clock lunch break on his first day back at King Chemical.

Kastens wasn’t calling the senator to thank him for his response to the letter he had sent two weeks earlier, though it was the only response he had received from any of his three members of Congress. Instead, he wanted to explain how he felt written off by the so-called “Slott Machine.”

Kastens imagined that someone on the senator’s Capitol Hill office staff had only glanced at the letter he had written, seen the word, Iraq, and assumed a form letter outlining the senator’s stand on Iraq would suffice. That person, whoever it was, was wrong.

“Senator Slott’s office, what is your zip code, please?” answered a young female receptionist, using a time-tested Washington method for screening calls.

“Six-two-four-zero-one,” Kastens said, realizing his call was probably interrupting the young lady’s lunchtime snack.

“Please hold,” she replied.

A two-minute medley of the senator’s campaign sound bites backed up by patriotic music followed. Then, as if on cue, the audio package ended and Kastens heard the voice of another young female address him.

“Good morning, may I help you,” a young lady said, careful not to offer her name so as not to have it linked to a constituent unhappy with her reply.

“Who am I speaking with?” Kastens asked.

“This is Tiffany,” she answered curtly. How may I help you?”

“Tiffany, my name is Larry Kastens,” he began, “and I’m calling to voice a concern to Senator Slott.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to visit our web site, Slott dot senate dot guv,” she explained quickly. “We have an online comment tool you can use to express your concerns directly to the senator.”

“I don’t want to use the web site, Tiffany!” he shot back. “That’s why I called today!”

“Sir, please hold,” she replied.

Kastens spent the next five minutes on hold, this time listening to the audio of a recent appearance the senator had made on one of the Sunday morning television news shows. When Tiffany came back on, she was decidedly rude.

“Alright, sir,” she said, speaking to the senator’s constituent as if his call was a rude interruption to her busy schedule. “What do you need?”

“Tiffany, I sent a letter to Senator Slott two weeks ago and, yesterday, received a form letter in return,” he explained. Just as Tiffany began to interrupt, he talked over her.

“My son was killed in Iraq last month, young lady, and I think I deserve something better than a form letter from the good senator. Don’t you?”

Tiffany’s tone remained unchanged as she issued a final plea.

“Sir, I’m sorry about your loss, but the senator receives thousands of letters each week and simply does not have the staff to answer each of them personally,” she explained. “The best way to reach Senator Slott is by using the comment tool on the web site.”

As Kastens began to reply again, the line filled with the sound of a dial tone filled his ear. Tiffany had hung up on him.

“Unbelievable!” he shouted before pushing the “END” button on his pre-paid cell phone and putting it back into the tool pocket of the white painter pants he always wore to work.

At this point, Kastens concluded that his elected officials in Washington were out of touch and that he would have to meet with them face to face to get his point across.

Since his boss had told him he could take more time off if he needed it, Kastens took advantage of the offer and asked for the day off on Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week.

After work on Monday, May 7, Kastens drove the 109 miles to St. Louis to catch a 7:35 p.m. flight on Southwest Airlines from St. Louis to Baltimore. Arriving in Baltimore two hours later, he was settled in a fifth-floor room in a Hampton Inn near the airport a full half-hour before midnight local time.

Early the next day, he would take a shuttle to the MARC station and, from there, take the Penn Line train to Union Station in Washington, D.C. After a short walk toward Capitol Hill, he would darken the doorways of his representatives in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

If all went well, he would wrap up his meetings by four o’clock in the afternoon and make it back to Union Station in time to hop the 4:15 train back to the station at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport – “BWI” in airline lingo. There, he would catch a nonstop 7:25 flight back to St. Louis. With good weather, he would make it home by 8:30 local that night, leaving him all day Tuesday to process what he had learned during his trip.

Though Kastens had scheduled a 6:30 a.m. wake-up call with the front desk the night before, he woke up Tuesday morning not needing it. In fact, he woke up a full hour early, chomping at the bit to face his elected officials.

At 6 a.m. sharp, Kastens was among the first of a crowd of early risers – mostly professional types – enjoying the free breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby/dining room. Like him, most wore suits. Unlike the man from Effingham, however, most of them seemed accustomed to the attire.

By 6:20 a.m., Kastens had boarded the hotel’s free shuttle to the train station. Ten minutes later, he was standing on the platform alongside at least 200 others. By 6:37, he was sitting in a backward-facing seat on train 407, bound for Union Station. And by 7:30, he was standing on the sidewalk outside the station, preparing to walk to his first stop – the Russell Senate Office Building – less than a mile away, according to a map of the capitol complex which he found at the web site of The Architect of the Capitol.

Carrying a small overnight bag that resembled a backpack, Kastens decided his first stop would be the office of Senator Slott, the only one of three elected officials who replied to his letter of April 16 – albeit with a form letter that missed its mark.

The walk toward the senator’s building was an eye-opener for him. Never before had he seen such a variety of people, many of whom found ways to balance newspapers, cell phones, PDAs and cups of Starbucks coffee while pulling wheeled suitcases or dollies loaded down with boxes full of who knows what.

Among the non-coffee drinkers were panhandling homeless people and $8-an-hour protesters who marched in circles outside government buildings and expressed half-hearted support of their cause-of-the-day employers. No, this wasn’t Effingham by a long shot.

Barely five minutes into his walk, he reached the entrance to what he thought was probably one of the most-appropriately-named buildings on the capitol complex: The Russell Senate Office Building, highlighted on his map as the Russell S.O.B. “This must be Senator Slott’s place,” he thought to himself. “His initials are on the sign.”

Kastens walked up the steps and through the entrance of the Russell S.O.B. only to find that he could not pass the security checkpoint without authorization of someone from Senator Slott’s office.

“I flew all the way from St. Louis to talk to my senator,” he pleaded.

“I’m sorry, sir,” a guard replied. “Without an appointment, your name doesn’t get on our list, and we can’t let you through. I suggest you call your senator’s office.”

Kastens thanked them for their advice and decided to do just that. Standing outside the building’s entrance minutes later, he used his cell phone to dial the number for Senator Slott’s office which he had brought with him just in case. When a female staffer answered, he told her of his predicament.

“I’m sorry, but the senator is booked solid for the next two weeks,” she replied without a hint of flexibility.

“My son gave his life for this country, and you’re telling me my senator doesn’t have time to meet with me about it for even a few minutes?”

“Not without an appointment, sir,” she answered. “I suggest you visit the senator’s web site and put in your request.”

“But I’m standing on the steps of your building! I don’t have a computer –”

Cutting him off, she replied, “That’s your best chance, sir. Goodbye,” and Kastens heard a dial tone.

Deciding to save himself from any more unproductive travel, Kastens called the offices of his other two members of Congress — Senator Lee and Representative Altamont — and received treatment nearly identical to that doled out by Senator Slott’s staffer.

Kastens couldn’t believe it. He had traveled all the way to the nation’s capitol only to be turned away by the people paid to represent his interests. Then and there, he realized that he could count on no one but himself for help when it came to fulfilling the promise he had made to his son.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 Bob McCarty, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, publication or broadcast
or other use of this document without the express permission of Bob McCarty, L.L.C., is prohibited by law.

>> Part Ten <<

To read other SCRATCH OFF posts, click here.