Stilettos, Stoli & Scribbles ~ Served With A Twist

I’m not seriously suggesting that you abandon your civic duty, or anything else, but sweet baby jeebus, it’s not even September and this election cycle feels as if it’s been going on FOR-EV-ER! Boy will I be glad when it’s over.

Between television, newspapers (yes, I still occasionally read the kind that get your hands dirty) and social media, I feel like I’m running out of fingers trying to plug the holes in the dyke that is my brain, in an effort to keep out the sludge.

This is me trying to resist the urge to hit “tweet” or “publish”. Sometimes the hand wins.

And if that weren’t enough, without discussing actual politics, let me just tell you that over the past weekend alone, I have received over fifty politically related emails. That’s an average of more than fifteen separate pieces of correspondence per day. Most begin by describing the latest dumb thing in a never-ending series of dumb things done or said by one of the candidates for President of these United States, though some ask me to sign a petition protesting something that someone somewhere wants to outlaw or prevent from becoming law. All of them are asking for a donation.

“No amount is too small!” they all declare. A lot of them start by asking for just $3.00. That’s all they need to stop ___ or ensure X.  Of course, that mere pittance is to get me to open the email. Once I do and have read through the latest “the sky is falling” message, they hope I’ll see fit to give more. Because they “can’t do it without {me}!”

I realize that I’m being dunned because I made the mistake of giving somebody something at some point in the past. Now, not only am I on a list or lists for all eternity, but the algorithms  devised by the giant computers that control the world have picked out several more causes and/or people for me to support.  Given that scenario, one would think, especially with all the blather about cybersecurity, hacking, polling, demographics, etc, etc, etc. that at least one junior staffer could figure out that this well is dry.

That they haven’t yet is both annoying and oddly comforting. See, if either the NSA or the CIA or some other combination of letters was actually keeping tabs on little ole me, then one or both of the candidates would have managed to get their mitts on my pertinent information and they would realize that they were barking up the wrong financial tree.  Joke’s on you, pals.

So they continue to fill up my in-box and I continue to delete. Seems like a waste of time, but it doesn’t cost them any more to send a thousand emails than it does to send one. On the bright side, at least they’re not killing trees or creating (tangible) trash.

Ten more weeks. *sigh*

As I said, I’m not encouraging you to take this election lightly. My job, as I see it, is not to educate you on the issues or sway you to my way of thinking, yada yada yada, but merely to give you a chuckle or at least a smile on this Monday morning.

On that note, I leave you with another scene from Alexander Payne’s dark comedy,”Election”, a film that uses a high school student government election as a microcosmic stand-in for the “real world”. It’s long been alluded to that Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is based, at least in part, on Hillary Clinton. If you haven’t seen it, it’s available on Amazon Prime and in its entirety on YouTube.

And in the spirit of bipartisanship, here’s a clip from “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” in which he recommends a book called “The Kid Who Ran for President“, that might be used as a blueprint for a speech if a candidate wanted to withdraw from the race.

-begin approx 6:28

Have a great week!