The House vs. The Senate

I spent last week at Youth and Government Youth Legislature as an appellate court justice and a member of the Press Corps.

The editor-in-chief was a perky senior named Amelia. For some reason, her delegation was in the habit of sending her bad puns on the little slips of paper that eighthgrade pages ran around the Capitol delivering.

You know what the terrible thing about puns is? However awful they may be, they stick in your head if there’s anything the least bit clever about them.

I was planning to write an impressive column this week, but the pressure in the Press Corps was so great (and the deadlines loomed so oppressively) that at pressent I am quite pressed to come up with any pressentible ideas. Thus, I am forced to reprint the one modicum of even slightly entertaining content pressent in my brain: Amelia’s puns. • A book fell off my bookcase and bonked me on the head. Hurt like heck, but I only have my shelf to blame. • What happens to illegally parked frogs? They get toad.

Okay, okay, these are truly reprehensible. But they weren’t actually the most interesting page notes we got over the weekend.

At Youth Legislature, there is a House of Representatives and there is a Senate. Much like in the real world, neither of them thinks much of the other.

This year, a bill was introduced to establish the supremacy of the House over the Senate. So, more than in previous years, the issue of House v. Senate is quite a hot topic.

One morning, the Press was honored with a surprise concession note from “The Senate”: Dear Press Corps,

We would love for you to, in your articles, show more of the grandeur of the House of Representatives. We feel that they should be recognized as greater than we, the Senate.

Our fellow chambermates, the House, have earned more prestige than we. Honor them more fully in your articles. We are the lesser. -The Senate Chamber.

Well, who are we to ascertain the quality of a source? News is news. We printed the letter, and we got another one in a couple days – this time, from the House:

We saw the Senate’s note yesterday and, while it did have its merits, we will respectfully disagree. The Senate is clearly superior to us. Their delegates tend to be much better at debate and, as represented by the note yesterday, much more humble. Thank you, Senate, but clearly you are the better chamber. Sincerely, The House of Representatives.

So it came as a terrific shock to all of us Press people when the supremacy measure passed overwhelmingly in the House but was tabled indefinitely (aka “tossed into a fiery black pit of eternal despairing oblivion) by the Senate.