Letter to President Obama #32 | Subject: Dreams

Letter to President Obama #32 | Subject: Dreams

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because my girlfriend had this dream I wanted to tell you about. She dreamt that you lost the keys to the White House and you addressed the nation on primetime TV and asked for our help in looking for them. Of course, all the reporters and newscasters giggled and as you were probably expecting this, you told them that there was presidential precedent for this sort of thing. You said that President Bush had done this all the time during his eight years and that’s why the terror alert system kept changing colors.

After she told me this, it got me thinking, and now I’ve got a few questions. First, does the White House even have keys? My girlfriend and I have a bet going on this one. I bet her a dollar that it’s so high tech that it doesn’t even need keys—you probably have thumbprint identification pads and retina scanners and all that. If I were you, I’d be careful about the retina scanners; I’ve always been leery of them since I saw Demolition Man and Wesley Snipes poked out that one guy’s eye just to use it for the scanner. If the security folks insist on the retina scanners I’d recommend that they teach you a Jujitsu version of that Three Stooges move where you protect your eyes from the crazy eye poke. They probably even have special hats (you know, with eye shields!) for that; I’d get one.

If you do have keys, I bet you guys have all sorts of other security too. That makes sense. If I were you, I’d get something like those Life Alert notification things; you know, those things featured in the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials. Except yours could play a version of “Secret Agent Man.” (As a kid, I always thought the title of that song was “Secret Asian Man.” Really!)

Then again, Life Alert isn’t a panacea either. One of my friend’s grandmas had one of those Life Alert notification things, but he lived with her and was kind of a misfit, so he always put it on his dog. This was a big dog, some Rottweiler mix and it was always rolling around and roughhousing. I hardly got to hang out with him because the cops were there every time I’d try to visit, which was a lot, like five times a week. It was kind of like the boy who called wolf, except in this case it was the boy who called fire department. A few months later, their house burned down and the dog died, so I didn’t get to go over there anymore.

Finally, I have a general question about dreams. I’ve been tuning in to most of your speeches, and I’ve enjoyed them. I’m a particular fan of your cadence, which is wonderful, and at times, it reminds me of other great speakers, particularly John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was listening to one of your speeches the other day and a line reminded me of MLK’s famous, “I Have a Dream” speech; I went to sleep thinking about it, and that night I also had a dream. I dreamt of little black boys and little black girls joining with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers, but in the end, they all turned out to be zombies and they tried to eat me. That was weird.

I’ve looked through all the Freud I have on my bookshelves and I can’t find anything about zombies and what they mean if they appear in your dreams. If you can help with this latter question, I’d appreciate it. I’m a bit flummoxed.

In any case, I wish you the best, and thanks for the good work.


Brett Ortler