A Short History of the Pads of Brillo

Dear Beeblebrox,

It's been an interesting week on planet Earth, particularly since I had old friends in town, just arrived from Mars. "Take us to your leader," they said, and next thing you know we're being greeted by the President, the Vice President and both full houses of Congress. We were welcomed warmly because I took the time to read that great interplanetary guidebook you lent me and made a quick stop in Times Square. There, along with the throngs of underage drinkers and other undocumented life forms, we rustled up some very authentic-looking souvenir Congressional ID cards. Then we stopped by Tiffany's for some custom-made souvenir lapel pins that said Member of Congress.

With those to-die-for holographic calling cards and those becoming little pins, we were waved right on in by the Capitol Police, right past the long lines of hoi polloi and the X-ray machines, faster than the express lane at Disneyland. Pin recognition, it's called. The older, outmoded technology of facial recognition is no longer sanctioned by their Earthland Security--possibly because members of Congress seem to have two, three, sometimes half a dozen faces to choose from. In any event, unlike the bouncers manning the velvet ropes at New York City nightclubs--who know an A-lister from an out-of-towner no matter what shoes you're wearing and could care less that you flew in all the way from Mars--Capitol Police simply cannot be expected "to know all 535 members of Congress by sight."

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