HELP!

 316.

We begin the highly structured tediousness - and are instantly called away.

"They're not wasting any time," Julie comments on her way to the communications room. That she has invited me along suggests a delicate negotiation is about to unfold. I am not disappointed, nor much off-target, with my initial reaction.

The Vice-Chair of the Homeland Security committee is holding for us. Without so much as a welcome he begins what sounds like a prepared speech, practiced, rehearsed and edited, lacking only occasional sound bites of an admiring audience. "Well, I'll take old as dirt any day of the week over crass narcissism and fraudulence," I consider as he launches into his monologue. Julie immediately shoots me the 'don't say it' look taking immediate control of our side of the 'discussion.'

Twenty long and painful minutes later we walk out of the com room, pass through the dining area, where I corral another finger sandwich and a can of sparking water, and settle back into the debrief, feeling slightly worse for wear. Julie has promised to thoroughly review the conversation at a time to be named later, as measured by hours and not days. She has also reminded me that our takeaway should focus on the positive, that we have been extended to at least to the end of fiscal, and not the negative, that the new direction will focus on one area and one area only: Domestic Terrorism.

To my ears, the Vice-Chair deciding to even consider using the trite and heavily sensationalized phrase 'witch-hunt' cost him the remaining credibility I was hoping to salvage. Julie purses her lips when I suggest that another Southern conservative Republican is what we need about as much as a outbreak of shingles. I try my best to leave it on the upscale, "But yes, at least we're still in the game."

Settled back in the confines of the interrogation room we jump-start the brief. Julie wastes no time, her gift, I mentally compliment, in cutting to the chase scene.

"Let's start with Bartowski."

'Turned a corner, side-swiped a truck, crossed my fingers just for luck.'

She asks me why I grin amid such serious business.

"One day we should try to conduct an entire de-brief using nothing but song lyrics," I glibly respond, stopping her dead in her stoic tracks.

Singing: "Help me get my feet back on the ground."

"Won't you please…"

"Help me."

"Help Me."

As one: "Help me-e-e-e ouuu."

We are momentarily embarrassed by our spontaneous outbreak of joviality, laughing at our response to the complicated, chronic stress of life in the fast lane.