Recycled Election Day

I wrote this in 2004, but it still feels just as relevant today. ESPECIALLY today.

I've finally achieved burnout, politically speaking. Years ago, I made a few decisions regarding political parties and social issues before I became too old and lazy and jaded to chip away at the layer of hardened pigshit that cloaks politics' chewy center of truth. I've thought about just using these decisions to guide my votes in a few weeks, but upon review, I rejected that idea. First, if I weren't so unconcerned with the outcome of this ballot, I'd have done some research and uncovered some actual facts to influence my choices. I've noticed lately that facts have a bad habit of being distorted by modifiers. For example, the headline "214 terrorists gunned down" and "214 helpless teenage civilians gunned down" tell two vastly different stories while numbering the same in the corpse column. Second, I am now more aware of the way my intuition is wrong more than half the time. If I could trust my gut feeling enough to base critical decisions upon, I'd be sitting next to a roulette wheel somewhere. Third, despite a vocabulary that flirts with adequacy, I'm dumber than a mouthful of piss. Some of the state questions on the ballot are so cryptic I suspect they are not in English.

The final and chief reason I'm not using my ideals to cast my vote is because I'm sick of being fucked with. Every twelve goddamned seconds some pandering douchebag is singing his own praises with one face while pimping false accusations about his opponent with his other face. "Bob Smith rapes dead babies in the ass with a pitchfork! If you vote for him, he'll finger-fuck your wife while snorting cocaine off of your daughters tits! He'll make your son have sex with the dog, and then force them to get married! Then he'll slaughter everyone in the entire state with his teeth! But only after he raises your taxes! Frank Jones would never raise your taxes, much less do any of those other morbid acts that Bob Smith is guilty of. Frank Jones loves you and Jesus too, and Jesus loves Frank Jones. Isn't it time you voted for Frank Jones and against cocaine pitchfork anal dog sodomy? This ad paid for by an organization accountable to no one and will not exist three months from now so fuck you."

And the ads aren't even the worst part. The worst comes from assholes and idiots I meet on a daily basis. It seems I can't even go take a shit without someone wandering over to check if I'm leaning to the left or the right when I wipe. People talk to me about the horse they've picked to win with fire in their eyes and fervor in their voices that rival that religious dipshit on channel seven. I understand that you have political opinions and are proud of them. You should be. But seriously, get the fuck out of my face.

After all the tiresome ranting I've been doing about my disillusionment with the entire political process, you may suspect I will forgo voting entirely. This is NOT the case. You see, I've hit upon a solution that makes everything square again. All the petty politics and shitty banter and one side trying to one up the other don't amount to a puddle of ass under my solution. I've solved my problem in a way I feel good about, while also making a mockery of everything for which politicians and their supporters have strived.

Monday, before the election, I am going to a toy store and burning nine bucks on my crucial vote-deciding apparatus. I will stride into my polling place with my new oracle in my grubby little fist. And I will vote for whomever and whatever my plastic sphere advises.


And you can fuck right off.
~

Go vote.