Write to Congress? Fuhgeddabowdit!

Got a complaint? Write your congressman or woman.

Fuhgeddabowdit! -- New York City dialect for Guideline No. 1

Guideline No. 2 : "For security reasons, mail delivery to United States Capitol offices is very slow. The best way to contact me or my Washington, DC staff is via the contact form on this page, or either by fax or by phone." -- From a senator's web site.

   For those with computers, it's hard enough to send a message to your representative in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. For those without, don't bother.
   Assuming you have a computer, or have access to one at your local library and are able to get there and you know how to use it, here's what you have to do:
   Go to the congressional web site (http://www.usa.gov), click on your state, find your representative, go to that representative's web site, click on "contact," set up the message format, fill in all the required fields, such as name, address, home phone, email address (yours, which leaves you open to a deluge of emails from the congressional office in the future, but if you're at a public computer and you don't have an email address, follow Guideline No. 1:  Fuhgeddabowdit and go away), then select and click on a topic from the limited choices, fit your message into the designated space, and, finally, type in the security code and hope the computer recognizes it so you don't have to try again. If you can't decipher the camouflaged security code, see Guideline No. 1 and go away.
   If the above is too tiresome or too complicated or you don't have a computer, see Guideline No. 1.

   Otherwise, if you still want to do it the old-fashioned way and send your message via the Postal Service, see Guideline No. 2 and then follow Guideline No. 1.

   You could, of course, mail your letter to the regional office of your Congressional representative. If you don't have the address, you can look it up on your computer. Oh, wait, you don't have one. Maybe the phone book will have it.

   Once you have found the address and typed up or hand-written your congressional complaint, you affix a stamp and drop the letter in the mail. In a few days, the Postal Service will dutifully deliver it to the local congressional office, where an aide or intern will open the envelope, read the message and decide whether it's worth bringing it to the attention of the senator or representative. Assuming he or she is there and has the time and inclination to read it.

    Meanwhile, you can expect a non-responsive response such as this, received within minutes of a message sent from ER headquarters today: "Thank you for contacting my office. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts about current issues. Please be assured that constituent correspondence will receive a reply in the near future."
   Or this: "Thank you for contacting me. Your e-mail has been received and will be responded to shortly. P.S. If you would like to respond to this message, please use the contact form on my website:"

   Don't hold your breath.

   And for those who are determined to write to their congressional representatives in Washington, be prepared to go to the desired web site or web sites each and every time you want to communicate, and be ready to follow the same procedure as above each and every time for each and every member of the Senate or House.

   As for compiling your own mailing list so you can send  future messages to all your congressional representatives with just one click, see Guideline No. 1:

   Forget about it and go away.