November 2000

F*ing Elections

Well, I’m not going to write an article about how stupid, corrupt, and wrong the "State" of Florida is. But forces have been conspiring to make it so. I would love to write about how I almost went to the World Series, in fact I got into trouble with work because I was late calling people to get tickets. I could be writing about how the football team I claim cheering for is actively sucking on the field. The sad thing is that these elections have been weighing on my mind something fierce.

This is not the way it is supposed to be. It’s the middle of November (oh, you don’t think we write these things ahead of time, do you? My deadline is a couple of hours from now. Like 2. We’re somewhat professional, we keep to our deadlines. Well, I do, you see Godzilla is a big jock and I am a nerd, so I have to do what he says or he’ll stuff me in a locker. We have lockers at the ERI compound just for stuffing nerds like me into them.)

What was I saying? Oh yeah, this election nonsense. Well, I’m supposed to not care about politics right now. The drama is supposed to be over, and I’m supposed to not care until the Inauguration, when I will care for another day, and pretend to care for the next month or so. Especially this year. In a couple of months I’m supposed to be interested in changes to prescription drug plans that I’m not involved in. Plans that will probably change 10 or more times by the time I need them.

But it is not to be, the beautiful finality of the elections which is supposed to occur around 7:45 in the PM on election day didn’t happen. People are still talking about the damn thing. I got my hair cut today in a little neighborhood barbershop. We were supposed to be talking about college football. Oh no. We talked about the election.

On the news, there are no stories of dogs getting credit cards, just stories about the election. And the same story. I actually saw a news-talking guy break into the TEEvee show just to say that there was no change. Okay, technically, he re-iterated what he has been saying for 2 weeks, but basically he was saying that there was no new news. Now, this was interrupting a soap opera that I never watch, but I think someone was going to announce that they were pregnant, and the father isn’t who you’d expect. At least that was something new. But the news-talking guy interrupted. It will be years before I watch the soap opera again, and the child will have grown up and have gotten amnesia and then remembered that his/her father isn’t who he/she would have expected. So, basically, this affects us all.

I have no ready solutions to this problem, but I have a suggestion. This is actually a solution I like to apply to most situations that annoy me. I would like everyone involved to get together, for the good of the country, and shut up, Shut Up, SHUT UP. Sure, I want to know who won. But, first and foremost, I want to know who won. I don’t care who thinks they won, or what decision happened that may or may not be overturned later.

I like to think I speak for the American people in all things. And, in this situation I am pretty much in agreement about this. Tomorrow, we will all talk about something else. We’ll let the courts decide which votes count, and afterwards, we will be outraged. Look, based on the popular vote, about 1/2 the people are going to be outraged no matter what, so lets all be civil for a little while, and get plenty outraged later. Then the other half can get outraged at the people who are outraged at the outcome. It’s the American way.

Come to think of it, after all this nonsense, I really am interested in a prescription drug program right about now. Sign me up, I’ll take one of each.