It was Amelia Bedelia’s first day as senator from New Mexico. “How exciting!” she said to herself as she climbed the steps of the Capitol building. “I can’t wait to start.”

Amelia walked by Judge Samuel Alito as she made her way to her new office.

“My, what a lazy job he must have. I’ve never worked anywhere in which I could wear my robe on the job!” she thought.

In walked Sen. Harry Reid to introduce himself.

“Hello Sen. Bedelia! Are you ready to write some new laws? Just promise me you won’t make any earmarks,” he said with a wink.

Amelia frowned at Reid.

“Sir, I’ll have you know I wash my ears every night, so they certainly won’t soil a single law.”

Reid looked at Amelia curiously then led her to the senate chamber.

“Today,” he said, “we’ll be signing a $700 billion bill.”

“My word!” Amelia cried. “What an expensive bill. How much did the rest of this baseball cap cost?”

When they entered the senate chambers, Amelia went straight to Sen. Hillary Clinton with a gift. She handed Clinton a roll of Duct Tape.

“I heard you put a few cracks in a glass ceiling somewhere. I hope this helps fix that,” she said. “But let me congratulate you for running for president for as many months as you did! You must have wonderfully strong legs because I only would have lasted a few hours running that hard.”

Clinton thanked Amelia warmly, then asked her to take a seat.

“Oh, no thank you. I already have plenty at my house,” Amelia responded.

Clinton laughed and explained, “No Amelia, the Senate is about to be called to order.”

“Wonderful! I was getting rather hungry. Do they serve fries here? If not, I’ll just have a burger and side salad,” Amelia said as she looked around for a waiter or waitress.

The meeting began with Sen. Barack Obama asking everyone to reach over party lines to help the economy. Amelia Bedelia got very excited about this. She hadn’t heard about party lines since she and the girls called the boys back when they had sleepovers.

When recess was called, Amelia ran over to Sen. Sherrod Brown with a jump rope.

“I never thought I’d get to do this again after grade school!” she exclaimed. Brown explained to Amelia that they were just taking a break from their work, that there really wasn’t a playground. He asked if she would like to come into his office and read a new law he just wrote.

Amelia followed Brown into his office and sat down to read the law.

“This is all very nice, Mr. Brown, but I have to ask: If this is capital hill, why did you use so many lowercase letters?”

Brown threw his head back and laughed a rather hardy laugh and told her all about the difference between “capital” and “capitol.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” said Amelia as she blushed.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it in time,” Brown said. “And tomorrow you get to meet President Bush.”

This made Amelia Bedelia smile.

“I will get used to it,” she said.” In fact, I think I’ll rather like working for a country that elected a shrub to be its president!”

Sarah Steimer is a junior magazine journalism major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].