Last night in Lewes, I spoke to a group of about 20 women that Rehoboth Beach rabblerouser Fay Jacobs assembled, all of whom wanted to know how they could help me with my fight to control the cost of health insurance. I was joined by one of my favorite State Representatives, Pete Schwartzkopf of Rehoboth. The discussion was not only lively but timely, because our General Assembly is coming back into session in about three weeks, and the time will have come to once again turn up the heat on the House of Representatives to let the two health insurance reform bills I have proposed come up for a vote. These women are locked, loaded, and ready to go: they are going to form coalitions with friends and business associates in the districts of the representatives who are holding these bills up, and to use a technical term, give them the business.

After the meeting was over, Pete told me that he would show me a ‘shortcut’ back to Route 1, but I misunderstood where he told me to turn and ended up in a pitch-black field that appeared to be where Joe Pesci was made in Goodfellows. Fortunately Pete had seen me make the wrong turn, called me on my cell phone to talk me down, and waited by the side of the road to lead me to safety. I was immensely grateful to Pete until I realized that if I had just gone back to Route 1 the way I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been lost in the first place. So in honor of Patty Hearst, I have decided that the sense of gratitude that one feels after being led into a disastrous shortcut and then rescued from that same shortcut by the guy who gave it to you in the first place will be called “Pete Schwartzkopf Syndrome.”

We only tease because we love, Pete.