During a political season nothing in your house will work

It’s not often that I bring up politics, even though this is a hotly contested presidential political year. People today are so passionate and emotional about their informed political views, which they have mostly formed from reading the backs of cereal boxes and the tabloids. To even bring up your political preference for a particular candidate, well it’s like being in a crowded saloon in the old west, surrounded by a bunch of drunken cowboys and announcing you are from New York City and yelling Chardonnay for everyone. 

You may have noticed that during a political season nothing in your house will work. I know I shouldn’t be so quick to blame, but it has to be a political thing. My computer went down; once that was fixed, the printer went off; after that was hooked up, the cable went out, and finally by the end of the day, the garage door was stuck half way on top of my car. The only reasonable thing left to do was obvious; just go out and buy a sail boat. 

Now, I’m not saying it was a candidate’s fault, but it has to be someone’s fault, at least according to the talking heads on the media. Everything is under investigation. Someone did it. However let’s not lose our minds and for heaven’s sake, actually do anything about it. Turn it over to the Department of Justice where it will sit untouched for aliens from outer space in the next century to find in an archeological dig.

Now you can learn a lot by watching television, which is why I didn’t tune into the last presidential debate. Instead I watched one of those scientific shows on NOVA about the migration of the zebra in the Kalahari desert to find water. These zebras travel hundreds of miles and endure extreme hardships along the way. They have to escape prey and still soldier on. You know this is true because it is always narrated by someone with a deep authoritative voice.

These are facts you can learn during a political year, unless you think you are better than the Kalahari zebras. 

Sure there are interesting facts to come out during these debates. The networks intersperse these advertisements with announcements about the most intimate parts of your body and what to do when something goes radically wrong, and it always goes wrong when it involves the intimate parts of your body. Anyway at some point, it is difficult to decide whether you need a plumber or a cork from a bottle. Don’t even bother consulting your physician, since most physicians are now working at Home Depot. 

Now one of the issues the candidates seem to ignore is just how difficult it is to get a bill through Congress. You can make all the promises you want, but achieving the intricacies of wheeling and dealing to make it happen are well just that, wheeling and dealing. 

For instance, suppose you wanted to enact a law where every parking meter in the country would be banned. This is just a hypothetical question and has nothing to do with me personally, even though the meter man yelled at me. 

Anyway, as I understand it, once a bill is introduced, Congress immediately calls for a recess so they may go out and hold press conferences non-stop to explain their positions. The most exciting part of the press conferences is the pants that catch on fire. 

I’m not suggesting that Congress doesn’t get anything done because in the end they all agree to pass a bill that would demand fire extinguishers be available for every press conference and the parking meter will not be banned unless another bridge to nowhere is included in the bill. 

Now my advice would be to stay informed about politics as much as possible. Know candidates’ positions, bone up on the current laws and put your own agenda first, like installing water fountains for the zebras. Buckle up people; the blame game is just beginning.