I wanted to congratulate you, Mr. Obama, on your inauguration, and especially to thank you for what you did last night. I left my apartment at around 7:30 to get to one of the many Obama parties I was invited to. I had selected this particular party because the host had a reliable satellite connection and because the crowd there was small. I can’t stand big crowds. Gosh, I don’t know how you can. But anyway, to my utter amazement, the route which usually takes me forty minutes on any given night, took me only seventeen. And that’s including a stop for buying cigarettes. My host was totally surprised when I got there as she had called me just before I left to let me know the event was about to start.
Well, I got there in time and caught the program from the very beginning. We did have to battle out jamming signals for a bit, but overall I think we missed only a handful of words in your speech. Maybe they were just glitches. They sometimes happen on satellite broadcasts.
I wasn’t sure what you meant when you kept saying change was coming, but I understand now. And I am completely baffled. In one single night, even before being sworn in, you achieved what my friend Mahmoud couldn’t in his many years of running this town. Not even with his ingenious and unique design for u-turns on freeways. His replacement hasn’t had any headway either.
There was something else too. On the way back, only one car cut me off on the freeway. And I didn’t even yell profanities at him. I swear I even saw another driver smile at me. But it was dark and I might be reading into things. Still, I’d like to think it was so.
I know you have a good gig now, but if you ever decide to quit, I can help you in getting the key to my town. It certainly can pay a lot more than what you’re doing now. A lot more. You can come for a visit first and I’ll show you around. If you come now, in winter, I can even take you halo watching in Tehran. That’s one of my favorite pastimes. It’s all about driving around freeways and watching the smog halos that form around street lights. They’re beautiful. See, I couldn’t even do that last night. When traffic eases up, magical things happen.
I hope I’m not out of line, but if it’s not too much trouble, I wanted to ask you to arrange for having an inauguration every day while you’re still at your current job. You can talk about anything, and it would be nice to squeeze in more pop stars in the program as people here like them a lot. The John Williams piece and Elizabeth Alexander’s reading were nice, don’t get me wrong, but we can draw in much larger crowds here with Madonna and Oprah Winfrey. I would also appreciate it if you can change the timing to coincide with Tehran’s rush hour. That would be 4:00 PM onwards (7:30 AM your time). Again, many thanks.
Tags: inauguration, obama, tehran, traffic