Jenna and the Secret Seriviece

So it turns out that I've been living near and walking past Mitt Romney's Boston-area condo for the last couple of months. I mean, walking right past it. Who knew?

I found out on Super Tuesday, when there were a bunhc of media people and Secret Service guys hanging out in our neighborhood. It took a while for word to trickle down to us what was going on, but we eventually all heard about our cfamous neighbor.

We joked around quite a bit about various things that we could do to get Mitt's attention. But we were aware that our antics were more likely to attaract the Secret Service guys' attention and land us in federal prison. There were litrerally Secret Service guys prowiling around in the woods behind Mitt's condo, keeping the area safe for democracy.

We pretty much agave up the idea of approaching Mitt's condo. (You may questio my use of Mitts first name instead of using the more journalistic “Romney” but I figuere that since were' neighbors, we can be on a first-name basis.) So anyway, we joked about trying to approach the condo but we all decided that there are wose things than being a mental hospital, and federal prison is one of them.

That's why I was really surprised when Jenna came in fairly late last nigt and said, “I talked to the Secret service!” It turns out that she wrote a quick letter to Mitt, put it in an envelope, and then wandered up to the condo. Jshe was wearing jeans and a black T-sohirt with some words on it (not words like “Anarchy rules!” or “DEMOCRAT.”) and she said that the Secret Service guys started coming towad her, saying, “Ma'am, ma'am, what yare you doing?” “You can't come up here.” “Stop where you are! Get on the ground! Face down with your hands behind your head!” Ha, ha. Not really. Well, they said the first two things but they didn't say that last bit. So, Jenna, who is in her late 20s and looks about 15, said “I just wanted to deliver a letter to Mr. Romney.”

They asked what kind of leter it was. She carefully ecxplaiened that it was a very repspectful letter, tahnkaking him for hit community involvement . It was not a ltetter saying that she had his children and would release them for a certain sum of money or helicopters to take her to Nicaragua, it wasn't a letter with the mad ramblings of a crazy person, it was just a nice, complitmentary letter for Mr. Romney.

That's when they threw her to the ground and handcuffed her. Ha, ha. Just kidding again. I don't remember whtehter they opened the envoeolope and read the letter, but they did accept the letter from Jenna's hand, and assured her that they would give it to Mr. Romney's secretary , who would see to it that Mr. Romney would actually read the letter.

I wish I had a more interesting story—perhaps one that had someone ending up in federal prison—but this is my closest brush with a famours poilitical figure, and I felt obliged to stick to the truth. Mostly.