Dear Jenn:

It is SO WEIRD to type out your new name: Jennifer Wilbanks MASON!!!!

I am SO sorry I could not make it down to Georgia for your wedding, but as I told you I had a speech in Canton, Ohio.

Just between us I also had an invitation to the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. Isn't it always the case that everything happens on the same weekend???? (ha! ha!)

Anyway, let me tell you about MY week. Last Saturday (not this past Saturday but the Saturday before that) I had to drive all the way out to Long Island for a dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. They must have had, I don't know, twenty people sitting along long tables. Can you imagine?

The traffic on the Long Island Expressway was just dreadful. I mean, think about the Perimeter Road during a - a SNOWSTORM!!!! - and you have some idea of what I had to go through to get there.

Then on Sunday night we had dinner at my mom's house. We had SIXTEEN PEOPLE!!!! Twenty people one night and sixteen people at my mom's the next. It was almost more than I could bear.

I mean, Jenn, I thought "You know, I think I'll just get into the Mullmobile and just keep on driving. I don't care if I end up at someplace like, NEW MEXICO!!!! " (ha! ha!). (Where do you put the close quotes in a sentence like that, Jenn. Before the (ha! ha!) or after? You were always SO good in composition!!!!)

Ennnnnie-way �

So, THIS weekend I had to drive to Ohio which was no a big deal, but half way across West Virginia the light that said, CHECK ENGINE SOON came on!!!! I'm thinking, "What ELSE can go wrong in my life????"

Oh. I forgot to tell you. On Thursday night I was the Master of Ceremonies at a Small Business Association Dinner (like "Oh, PUH-LEEZE," right????") and they hadn't put my name in the program and they wouldn't let me put a really terrific column I wrote a couple of years ago in honor of small business people on the tables!!!!

They told me the LAWYERS wouldn't allow it because � I forget, why. And then they said that it was because the sponsor of this dinner - Sam's Club - more or less had the exclusive rights to put crap at the tables. Sam's Club, Jenn, is owned by Wal-Mart. Talk about your average small business, right????

I said, "You are the SMALL BUSINESS Administration, not the BIGGEST RETAILER IN THE WORLD Administration!!!!"

I mean, REALLY!!!!

I was sooooooo angry - you have to SUH-WEAR you won't repeat this - I was so mad I thought about just leaving and not telling them where I'd gone (maybe just drive to someplace like "NEW MEXICO!!!! (I don't know why, but typing that makes me laugh) and just leave all of the 1,500 people JUST SITTING THERE (ha! ha!)

But I thought, "What would my friend Jennifer do?" And I knew that you would just jut out your pretty chin, square your wonderful shoulders, look the problem square in the eye and go right ahead, which is just exactly what I did!!!!

So, thank you SO MUCH for being my PERSONAL MORAL STRENGTH TRAINER!!!!

Hey!!! Speaking of eyes. I glanced up at CNN or Fox or one of those over the weekend and I could have SUH-WORN I saw a photo of you on the screen. But the person they were showing had a real, sort of, like, "DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS" look, so I knew it couldn't have been you.

I mean, if someone had asked me if that were a photo of you I would have demanded they give me a LIE DETECTOR TEST!!!! (Do they still DO lie detector tests?)

Ok. I HAVE to go. Call me the VERY second you and (OH!!!! MY!!!! GOD!!!! I've forgotten your husband's first name!!!!) Oh, John. The second you and JOHN have returned from your honeymoon in that "SECRET UNDISCLOSED LOCATION" you two nutcases (ha! ha!) have picked out, so we can get together.

Maybe in some place like NEW MEXICO!!!! (ha! ha!)

Your Friend,
Rich