Campaign Donor Shocked — Shocked — To Learn His Check Came With A Holiday Card And Nothing Else

MINEOLA, N.Y. — A campaign donor said Monday he was shocked, shocked, to learn that his check came with a holiday card and nothing else, a development he described as highly irregular in the emotional sense. The card, he reported, featured a snowman, a generic greeting, and no mention of his preferred hearing, his preferred holiday, or his preferred font.

We send cards. If he wanted a meeting he should have come to the tree lighting, which is public, and which also has a snowman. The snowman does not take questions. That is in the bylaws, which are also a card.

He has placed the card in a clear sleeve. He has not asked for the check back. He has asked, twice, whether the snowman is a metaphor, and once whether the metaphor has a treasurer. The committee's position is that the card is the entire program. The snowman, a spokesman added, is the same snowman everyone gets, which is either the point or the problem, depending on the sleeve.

Thank-you notes are the last bipartisan institution out here. Everyone gets the same snowman. The expensive envelopes close. That is the whole distinction, and it is doing a lot of work.

The donor said he will frame the card next to the canceled check so future grandchildren can see how civic life works. He remains, he said, shocked. He has drafted a letter to the snowman. The letter thanks the snowman for its service and asks it to appear, next year, in a slightly larger envelope.

At press time, the committee had mailed him a second card, this one of a wreath, to see if the shock was specific to snowmen.