MANY HAPPY RETURNS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-10-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     So, what have you got planned for next Tuesday? Most people will be going to the polls, and casting their vote. I'll be having my foot operated on, voting for a cast. After all, it is elective surgery.... As painful as it will be for me, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Following returns all night long, the potential for a depressing result, obvious losers who refuse to concede, and on top of that I'm never going to fit into your shoes with this cast on.

     At least it will bring a welcome end to those political ads, which I can't stomach for either party. I would love to see political ads banned from television, forcing people to actually read about the candidates and figure out a coherent reason for supporting one over the other. Then I remembered that I work for television, and these ads help pay my exorbitant salary, and now they give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. 

     I have consciously avoided discussing politics here because if I do, afterwards I feel like earthworms have been crawling all over my body, and believe me the sensation is no less unpleasant for the earthworms. These days everything is black or white, all or nothing, good or bad. If you spin something that's black and white it turns gray, and the gray areas are much more interesting. Subtlety and nuance lives there, as does art and music. If politics could be a little more like art and music, it wouldn't sound so horrible all the time.

     Also, and I don't want to sound any more ignorant than usual, but there are some offices that I have no idea what they do, and I mean this with no disrespect. I'm sure that comptrollers are out there every day fighting the good fight, but I can't remember the last time someone said, "This situation is out of comptroll! Only a competent comptroller can keep this thing from going haywire!"

     I also don't know what an adjutant does, but I suspect that if my comptroller had an one, he or she would send them along to do all the dirty work, and then swoop in to take all the credit afterwards. A bursar's duties are a bit of a mystery to me, other than doing the billeting. And here's a bulletin: I don't know what billeting is either. I do know that a bursar sounds like it could be harmful to your skin. "Didn't you used to have a bursar in the office next door?" "Yes, and we had to call a doctor in to have it removed. I was going to lance it myself with a barbecue skewer, but my secretary talked me out of it."

     Just listening to most politicians talk is like watching an embarrassing Oscar speech. Judging by the brainpower of some members of the Senate, it seems easier to get a seat there than on the Number 7 train during rush hour. It's like the old joke that to escape, I don't have to run faster than the lion, I only have to run faster than YOU. Politicians don't have to be smarter than the average high school graduate, they just have to be louder and more annoying than the one running against them. 

     Why not make the race a REAL race, like a pentathlon? Five events to find out which candidate is the worthiest. The first event is the "Skeleton," where we count the number of scandals each contestant has in their closet, and see whose is the seamiest. Next is the "International Spin," where we present each candidate with a tragic overseas natural disaster, and see which one can make it most about THEM. In the "Political Football" event, we take an issue that no one wants to talk about, like lowering their own salaries, and whichever one can keep from making a face like they just ate tainted seafood wins. Next is "Discuss Throw," where, when presented with a specific topic to discuss, he or she thinks about it thoughtfully, then proceeds to answer a question that was never asked. Lastly, "Artistic Pandering" measures a candidate's ability to make a specific and brainless statement designed to appeal to the least intelligent segment of the population, and then tries to get Mexico pay for it.

     So, Melén, I guess you think you could do any better? Hell no, I would be disqualified after the first hacker gets hold of my browser history. Oh, I don't have any more to answer to than any other normal guy, but anyone looking at the weird searches I do to research this column would have to conclude that I should be institutionalized sooner rather than later.