Dear Congress,

I sure hope you’re all enjoying your five-week long paid vacation. I’m certain that all American taxpayers like me are glad we could provide it for you.

Don’t worry about us. We’ll get along fine with our measly little two-week vacations, or none at all in a lot of our cases. We can’t afford to go anywhere anyway. You just have a good time.

I know a lot of people think you bailed out on them at a time when the country is desperately in need of some creative thinking to help with our energy problems. Never mind. We’re saving all kinds of money these days so we can buy all the gasoline we need.

After all, food has gotten so expensive we’ve decided to go without most of it and besides, it costs too darn much to run the stove anyway. And, with no food, we’ve been able to unplug the refrigerator and save all that electricity.

While you’re home, it might be a good idea for you to drop by a local gas station to check out the prices. If you’re in my area, be sure to notice that prices in my town remain about 20 cents higher than in neighboring towns.

Maybe that will give you something to investigate and hold hearings on if you’re done with steroids in major league baseball and other real important stuff.

While you’re laying around in the sun, maybe you could spend a minute logging in to the Employment Security Web site and check out all the wonderful jobs they have listed all over the place.

As a favor, could you alert me if you see one that’s paying more than 10 bucks an hour.

I’m puzzled where those living-wage jobs are that I keep hearing about. How much is a living wage, anyway? You never seem to say.

I’ll bet worrying about all that deficit spending and staggering national debt is really tending to spoil your rest and relaxation, huh?

Well, don’t you concern your little pointy heads about it. I’m sure all those nice foreign countries will be happy to keep loaning us all the money we need to pay for all the excesses you vote for.

Heck! We know you’ve gotta pay for all your earmark pork. We know how proud you are of those accomplishments and we need teapot museums and bridges to nowhere.

Well, I don’t want to keep you from your vacationing any longer. Besides, I’ve got to get out to the garage and put some air in my tires. I sure don’t want to make those gas prices go up any higher. You just get some rest and enjoy yourselves.

And do some campaigning while you’re home. We sure do need the likes of you right back there in Washington, D.C., fighting for us every day.

Terry Christiansen