[Kizz] No Last Name

During the 2004 Presidential election I worked for a man with a lot of money. He decided, as he often does, to use that money to back certain politicians. In this particular year he also used whatever media presence he had (not miniscule, not huge) to endorse the candidate of his choice for the highest office in the land. As the lowest on his totem pole of personal assistants it was my job to answer unsolicited mail and phone calls. I was given a 5 figure bonus (low 5 but 5 nonetheless) at the end of the year because that part of my job alone should have broken me. I'm willing to bet that the only reason it didn't was because I was too busy to reflect on how ridiculously awful the experience was while I was in it.

I remember one woman in particular who called quite early on, [Edna]. First she wanted to talk to the boss but they all wanted to talk to the boss so that never flew. I told her (probably truthfully) that he was out. In that case she wanted to know if the boss had a US Passport. I'm not sure why they phrased it that way but I'd already had and continued to have that question a lot. He does so I told her. Was he a US Citizen? Yes. What about the fact that he was born in [Turkey]? Well he wasn't born in [Turkey] so I didn't see how it figured. Oh yes he was, she ranted! Then she yelled to her husband in the background to double check. I'm not sure which channel [Morty] was watching but the volume was up pretty high and it took her a couple of tries to get her question across. She came back to me more certain than ever. I reassured her as kindly as I could that he was not born in [Turkey]. She got hopping mad. Where was he born? I started to hesitate here. Whenever they started to get ranty or self-righteous it was a cue to keep my answers short, polite and as uninformative as possible. Engaging in unproductive conversations usually did more harm than good. I couldn't see a clear exit so I told her the truth again, he was born in [Belgium]. I did not point out that was a fact she could have checked with numerous other sources on the internet, the television, at the public library and, if she was terribly ambitious, probably the immigration department of the United States of America. Well, it still wasn't America and didn't I know he was trying to be President? No, ma'am, that was certainly not the case. In her defense, how was she to know that, she didn't have my insight into his other...intellectual pursuits. A stint as president was most certainly not among them. But he was supporting [presidential candidate] with a lot of money and many parties! (No! Not...parties!) True and that was because he wanted the candidate to be president. It was just a first step, she countered. Since engaging her was the very last thing on a list of smart tactics I might employ I didn't go to the internet and read to her from the qualifications required of a POTUS, I wouldn't have read all of them, just the part where s/he has to be a natural born citizen of the country in question.

Unable to provide that knockout blow we went a few rounds on the boss's intentions before she got frustrated and decided that conversion was her only hope. My conversion not hers, sadly. At her request I gave my first name. I refused to give my surname and made up on the spot an office policy that, for safety's sake, we did not reveal our full names. Was not that, she declared, proof that the boss was hiding something from me, from all of us, that his intentions were not pure and that by the time the votes were all counted he'd be Lord High Dictator of Our Beloved Stars and Stripes why oh why was I not doing something to halt his perfidious march immediately! OK, [Edna] wouldn't have used perfidious or lord or even beloved but that was her point. She saw in the (possibly misguided) passions of this old, rich dude the demise not only of her country but her family and her own frightened little person somewhere in the "heartland." I did a lot of travel itineraries in that job and, honestly, she needn't have worried, I never did a solitary one for the heartland, he just wasn't interested.

I tell you this not as stand alone blog content or even as a rant against people who dislike our current Commander in Chief but to say that, again, I am not surprised by the birthers and their inability to let go of this one item that has somehow grappled onto their fears and is now riding herd. I get the fear. I was mortally afraid for 8 years. I'm still afraid just with a side of curly Hope now. [Edna] didn't stand alone either. She was the first of many and she waited until we'd been chatting more than 20 minutes before she threatened my life and my immortal soul (not hyperbole, by the way, we both ended the call near tears) so she wasn't even the worst of what I put up with that year. These birthers will eventually be elbowed out of the spotlight by someone else with some other fear that hinders their ability to accept what has happened here. Let's just hope they aren't the equivalent, on a national level, of the guy who disguised himself as a messenger to sneak into our office and deliver a hand written threatening letter to me.