Rosey Pelosi

For those of you who do not recognize this woman, she is Nancy Pelosi, the "Speaker of the House."

For those of you who do not personally know me, my maiden name is Pelosi. When people would have trouble pronouncing our last name, my mother would always say, "Rhymes with Rosey, Rosey Pelosi." Growing up, Pelosi was not a common name and the only Pelosi's in the phone book were one of our relatives.

About 3 years ago, I was in Washington, DC with a friend of mine who was attending a pharmaceutical conference. On the last day, they were all invited to a cocktail reception featuring a guest speaker, Nancy Pelosi. He invited me to join them and when we entered the room of hundreds of people, we all mingled and introduced ourselves. I was surrounded by doctors and lawyers and very influential people from different pharmaceutical companies nationwide. They all wanted to know "who" I was with.

Oh dear, who was I with....I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. "I am Nancy Pelosi's cousin," I proudly exclaimed. Suddenly I had made too many friends! They wanted to know when she was coming and could I introduce them, etc. I calmly told them she would be arriving soon and snuck away to find her and save face.

I went up to the stage area where she was speaking and luckily found her publicist. I explained that I was a Pelosi and would love to meet her. I was prepared to show my driver's license to prove I really was not some nutcase but shortly thereafter, Nancy finished her presentation and came over to me and shook my hand, hugged me and a photo was taken of the two of us.

I told her my relatives were from Baltimore and she said her husband Paul's family were also from Baltimore. Who knows, Paul could really be a distant cousin of mine but it really didn't matter. I had fun, saved myself from what could have been an embarrassing situation and got to meet the Speaker of the House!