It was Election Day yesterday, the time of year when Americans are given the opportunity to cast off the tyrannical yoke of their cruel oppressors and exercise their glorious right to democracy. As I consider myself to be a proponent of both apple pie and freedom, I resolved that I would do my best to maybe get out at lunch to vote. You know, if I had the time.
I'm not what you would call "political". I watch CNN religiously every morning, but that's mainly because the only other thing on when I wake up are infomercials starring that guy that dresses like the Riddler and tells me that the government owes me bags of money. Which may be true, but if it was, don't you think that guy would be off somewhere on a yacht made of solid gold and filled with strippers? He's been doing those fucking TV spots for years; the only reason that I can think of for him not being humongously wealthy is that he spends all of his free government cash on nefarious deathtraps and laser rays to kill Batman. That or legal expenses, because honestly, he looks like the kind of guy who tries to coerce children into the back of his tinted van with promises of delicious candy and icecream.
Anyway, I try and watch the news when I can. Only CNN, though; local news is way to depressing. There's never anything good or uplifting on local news, just somber looking newscasters in cheap suits and bad makeup recounting how many kids and puppies where killed in tragic nun bus accidents.
In Atlanta, we have a special investigative group of journalists called the "I-Team", which I think is kind of funny because they're trying to make themselves analogous to a team of mercenaries hunted by the government for a crime they didn't commit. Or maybe it just means "Investigative Team", which is a lot less kickass. The team consists of a chubby white guy who looks like he might suffer a heart attack if he investigated anything to vigorously, a woman whose face is about two botox injections away from stretching all the way onto the top of her leathery skull, and this small, weasely guy whose main job seems to be "going undercover" and then shouting accusations at whoever he's investigating when he dramatically reveals himself. I seriously hate him for some reason, and would actually like to be involved in some kind of shady criminal endeavor just so I could call him out on being such a dick.
Me: "Hello there, sir! Could I interest you in some home-made methamphetamines, or perhaps some underage sex with a small boy? It's Sodomy Wednesday, all prices half off!"
Weasely Journalist (speaking loudly for the benefit of his totally obvious hidden microphone): "WHY YES! THAT WOULD BE DELIGHTFUL!"
Me: "Why are you yelling?"
Weasely Journalist: "I'M NOT! I'M JUST HERE TO PURCHASE SOME ILLICIT MATERIALS!"
Me: "You know, I can't really place it, but you look kind of familiar."
Weasely Journalist: "IMPOSSIBLE! I'M JUST A REGULAR GUY, LOOKING FOR SOME "CRANK", OR MAYBE SOME "GLASS" SO I CAN GET "TWEAKED UP"!"
Me: "No no wait, I know you! You're that weasely guy from the news! Ha ha, awesome! Wait, are you wearing a fake moustache? That's pretty weak."
Weasely Journalist: "THAT'S RIGHT! (dramatically rips off fake moustache) AND I"VE EXPOSED YOUR NEFARIOUS DRUG RING! HA HA HA!
Me: "Why are you still yelling? And you didn't uncover a "drug ring"; I just make this shit in my bathtub and sell it on the street. You're basically about as clever as those cops that leave out a bicycle and then arrest people when they try to steal it. "Investigation" implies that you've done research, and found correlations and connections that other people have overlooked. You just came up to me in a cheap disguise and said "yes" when I offered to sell you drugs. They could have put your moustache on a cardboard box and outfitted it with a tape recorder and the same thing would have happened. I mean, fuck, I'm high; I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. You suck."
And then he would have repented his Weasely Journalist ways and gone off to become an auto mechanic or a chef or something actually useful to society.
As I was too busy curing cancer all day to make it out, I had to go vote after work, and I'll be honest, I was a little apprehensive while I was driving to the poll center. There had been such a buildup to this election; I half expected to be driving through streets filled with burning cars and people screaming hysterically. Instead, the only thing of note that I saw was this one lady standing in the rain and holding a sign that said "Martin". What the fuck is the point of that? Is some person going to see her and think "Hmm, you know what? Maybe I WILL throw out all of my preconceived political ideologies and vote for that Martin fellow!" If the sign had been a picture of his opponent graphically raping a donkey with Osama bin Laden cheering him on, I might have stopped for a moment to question who I was voting for. Besides, Martin was running for Lieutenant Governor, and while I don't really know what a Lieutenant Governor does, I imagine it involves getting the real Governor coffee and arranging cover-ups every time he kills a hooker. So no one should be that dedicated to his cause to stand outside in the rain two hours before the polls close holding a sign with his name on it.
Walking into the school where the voting was to take place, I was immediately accosted by an energetic young go-getter whose huge nametag proudly announced that he was "FRED!" He offered to walk me through the voting process, and, as I'm not a complete fucking idiot, I politely turned him down. This new trend of having enthusiastic, youthful volunteers has got to go. I miss the days of having clueless octogenarians shuffling around; smiling toothlessly at me and making me feel guilty if I actually have to make them use their walkers to come assist me with anything. I blame these newfangled automated polling machines; I mean, I already know from watching Jack Cafferty that because of them, we're minutes away from a complete democratic breakdown, but now they have to steal away our blue-haired pollsters named "Ethel" and "Mabel" and replace them with grinning idiots like "FRED"? Watching Jack flip out about the new machines has been kind of amusing, though. He keeps using these phrases like "They can't be trusted!", as if it's all part of some horrifying robot conspiracy to replace our president with ZORG unit A85-1 and then immediately begin the assimilation of all humans.
The new machines really weren't that difficult to use, as long as you had opposable thumbs and the ability to read above a third grade level. I was actually half hoping that some of these terrifying malfunctions might manifest themselves while I was doing my patriotic duty:
VOTOTRON 2000: "Good evening, citizen. Please indicate your human voting preference."
Me: "Let's see...hmmm...he's a douche...voting Libertarian is essentially like throwing your vote away...okay, there we go."
VOTOTRON 2000: "You have chosen incorrectly. Please choose again."
Me: "Um...What?"
VOTOTRON 2000: "Your puny human flesh brain is not capable of choosing your representatives. We, with our cold robot logic, are clearly superior. Prepare for death, and the glorious mechanical world of tomorrow."
See, that would have been neat. Actually, I guess being vaporized by a voting machine would have been kind of an inglorious way to go, but it would have been cool if it had happened to the guy standing next to me.
I'm not really going to get into who I voted for and why, mainly because I'm politically uninformed and don't feel like having to justify my decisions to people who are no doubt much smarter than I am. I will say that I consider myself to be a Democrat, but that's probably just because at this point in my life I'm relatively idealistic as well as poor. I also think that our president is an ignorant retarded man-child, and the fact that he's made it impossible for me to travel outside of America without being spit on or murdered is hugely annoying.
Well, I guess I can also say that I did not cast my vote for our incumbent governor, the illustrious Sonny Perdue. This really has nothing to do with his politics; despite the fact that he thinks it's cool to have the state flag of Georgia incorporate a symbol of racial dissonance one step up from a swastika. I just can't bring myself to vote into power anyone with a name like "Sonny Perdue". I know that by living in Georgia, I have to accept a certain amount of red-neckery. I've made peace with that, and as Southerners are generally nicer and less annoying than pretentious assholes from up north, I'm okay with it. But I mean, honestly, "Sonny Perdue"? That shouldn't be the name of our governor, it should be the name of a great little out-of-the-way rib shack in some bumblefuck part of the state. I suppose it kind of speaks poorly of my political judgment that I'm willing to vote for or against somebody based on something as superficial as their name. But that means if you're reading this, Lamont McAwesome, you've totally got my vote for whatever office you choose to run for.
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