Letter to President Obama #31 | Subject: Cats, The Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Customs

Dear President Obama,

As you know, I’ve been writing you letters fairly often, once or so a day for about a month now. But I’ve slacked off the last week or so, as I’m pretty busy, as I’m moving into a new house soon. As you can imagine, I have boxes all over the place.

Unfortunately, I also have cats. This means that my cats keep investigating every box I have, and by “investigate,” I mean they tip them over. Then they spread all of the contents over the floor and then hide in the box. They usually do this at night, so every morning I wake up, I find that my “kitchen” box is halfway down the hallway and it looks like a culinary hurricane passed through the living room in the night.

This has some unexpected consequences—because when I’m in a rush to get to work, I sometimes miss a few items. Then I’m at work and I get a phone call from my girlfriend, who reminds me (again) that it is less than pleasant to sit on the couch and then realize you’re sitting on a spatula. I always tell her that it could be worse, it could be a whisk, or something, but apparently that’s not much consolation.

In any case, I haven’t gotten that much packing done yet. In any event, to prevent this from happening again, I’d like to get my cats temporary jobs. That’s where I need your help, Mr. President; I think my cats could be a great fit for one of several government positions.

First of all, I think my cats would be a great fit for the Transportation Security Administration. As I mentioned, my cats love all varieties of packages, boxes and luggage. Sitting by the conveyor belt with all that luggage would be perfect for my cats. Dogs would be a poor choice for this position. For instance, my dog’s pretty selfish; he just investigates every plastic bag we bring in the house because he thinks there is a toy in it for him.

My cats are also really, really crabby, which I’ve concluded is a necessary requirement for candidates at the TSA. Even better, my cats are also quite suspicious, but unlike their human counterparts, they don’t discriminate on the basis of race. In fact, my cats don’t discriminate whatsoever; my cats are suspicious of me all the time. More than that, sometimes my cats are outright contemptuous. (To tell the truth, sometimes I think my cat wishes I didn’t exist. Especially when I try to make the bed when he’s sleeping on it.)

Now, there is a downside to employing cats at the TSA. There is the problem of catnaps.

Even if the TSA thing didn’t work out, I think my cat would be a great Customs Agent. I mean, other than the general curiosity and grumpiness, my cats are also very clever; I mean, there’s no swindling a cat. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I could get my dog to bite his own tail if I gave him enough treats. Not so with a cat.

I think this characteristic would be a benefit for the Customs Agency. For instance, if someone were trying to sneak a few dozen cases of Labatt’s Blue Beer across the U.S.-Canada border without paying the required taxes, my cats would see right through that. Once, I tried to trick one of my cats, Xerox, into thinking that I’d put extra food into his dish, but I’d really just moved some from his sister’s dish (Peanut) into his. He looked at both dishes, back at me, and then he literally shook his head “no” three times. If he could have reported me to some sort of authority, he would have.

Finally, my cats also have the chutzpah to stand their ground and turn offenders and rule- breakers in, if necessary. I have personal experience with this—I was coming back to the States from Canada, and I was bringing a whole bunch of fruit back from Vancouver. I didn’t know that certain foods weren’t allowed across the border, so according to the rules, the Customs people had to seize it as contraband.

If that were me, I wouldn’t be able to do this all the time; I’d probably be too nice about it and let them go. Instead, the border control person, who looked a little like a cat, seized my food. For a moment, I thought she was going to eat it in front of me. She didn’t, but I’m still pretty sure they never have to bring in lunch to work. Jerks. To be sure, I have no doubt that my cat would have done the same thing.

So please consider my cats for the TSA or the Customs Agency; if they have jobs, maybe I can get some packing done.

Thanks, and take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #31 to President Obama; I was writing one a day for about three weeks, but slowed down the pace a bit because of the problems listed in this letter. I'm sending all of these letters to the President; I'll let you know if I get a response. If you like these, please let me know and tell your friends. Thanks.

Letter to President Obama #15 | Subject: The White House Dog

Letter to President Obama #15 | Subject: The White House Dog

Dear President Obama,

First of all, I’d like to congratulate you and your family on choosing a dog. I’ve got a few pieces of advice for you and the First Family, and I have a few questions that the general public might be interested in knowing about too.

First of all, I understand you selected a Portuguese Water Dog, because of its hypoallergenic properties. That’s probably a good idea. I have cats and they aren’t exactly hypoallergenic; to be honest, they leave hair all over the place. Because of this I no longer own any white shirts—when I had some all my white shirts immediately became covered in cat fur, so much so that people would think I was some sort of rabid mammal and they’d call Animal Control on me. Mr. President, getting bailed out of a cell is bad enough, but when that cell’s at the pound, it’s much worse. Thankfully, my girlfriend’s pretty nice. Unfortunately, my way of paying her back was letting her adopt a pet after each time she bailed me out. As of this writing, we have 12 cats.

I do have a question about national security and the First Dog—will the dog be anywhere near the Big Red Button? That is to say, as I understand it, somewhere in the White House there’s a Big Red Button that, when pressed, launches a whole bunch of nukes, thereby instigating one big game of atomic catch. I, for one, would like to encourage you to keep the First Dog away from that button—you never know, he could think it was a toy, or you could chuck a toy across the oval office and it could hit the Big Button. And then we’d all be in trouble.

If you think example is facetious, it’s not. Dogs can be inadvertently destructive. Consider my dog—his name is Bratwurst. He’s a wienerdog. Not surprisingly, he loves hot dogs. I was playing with him and I’d set my glasses on the bed. He jumped up onto the bed, crushing my glasses in the process. Later, I superglued them back together, but then he did again! Now imagine if he had jumped on the Big Button. You’d have a mess on your hands, Mr. President; at the very least, you’d have an angry Vladamir Putin on the other line. (Do you ever want an angry guy named Vlad on the other line?)

With that aside, I must commend you on the name of “Bo” for the First Dog, though I must admit that I resent those two letters a bit. During my first game of Monopoly, when I was five years old, I landed on B & O railroad, and I was really excited that I was about to purchase a property that was, as I joyfully exclaimed, “Named after me!” It was only then that Jeff, the player next to me, said, “Yeah, it is just like you, BODY ODOR.” Ever since, I’ve gone by three initials (BEO), not two. I have never forgiven Jeff.

I also have one other question—does the First Dog get Secret Service protection? If so, as an added precaution, maybe you should make him a bulletproof vest that looks like one of those dog sweaters. That’d be a good idea, and it’d probably be warmer too.

Please let me know what you think about these issues.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler