Make Mine Vertical Landscapes
April 6, 2012
Let Them Party to Relieve The Pain (Short Story)
April 19, 2012
This essay is a follow-up to a political piece I posted to the blog two weeks ago. We recently had a local election for town council positions and mayor, and I had a chance to attend one of the local establishments where results from the election came in. Naturally, my twisted little mind came up with an analysis of the evening.
Word count: 921
Your Political Analyst
In the Field
I’ve become very good at traveling as an incognito journalist in various political circles. This is quite surprising when one considers that Silverton is a very small town and sooner or later everyone finds out about everyone else’s business whether you want them to or not. This has caused certain problems for me. Particularly since I’m a covert spy for the Ben & Jerry’s Ice CreamCorporation and I’m currently scouting out locations for a possible new franchise in our valley.
How do you hide this fact from members of the business community who will most likely become extremely paranoid upon finding this information out? Should I be scared that my father’s hotel will be secretly attacked and fire bombed at 3:00 AM on a Wednesday night? As some actor in a Hollywood slasher flick once put it, “Be afraid, be very afraid.”
A week and a half ago on a Tuesday night there wasn’t much to watch on the boob tube so I managed to sneak my way into what started out as a boisterous get-together to find out the results from a local election. The gathering was at a local rum bar complete with all sorts of refreshing alcoholic beverages and the snobs who drink them (including yours truly). A palpable sense of anticipation could be felt throughout the audience.
One by one many of my friends began to show up and pretty soon you had a fairly big crowd of local politicos. Everyone ordered a stiff, potent drink of his or her choosing, and expected vote totals to come in any minute now. The local proprietors of this business establishment hadn’t set up an over-sized video touch screen monitor yet, but I figured this would take place very soon. The waitress was probably extremely busy and had trouble taking the extra time to wheel the monitor out and hook it up.
An hour went by and when the monitor still hadn’t been set up I began to wonder what’s wrong? Politics is an extremely serious matter here in our town so why hadn’t these people gone to the extra time and expense of purchasing a monitor? What’s going through the minds of these people?
They did set up a popcorn machine and I quickly positioned myself within easy reach of the unit. I’d already eaten dinner, but one never passes up the opportunity to get some free food. This was of course no exception to the rule. I would’ve preferred that they gave out free dessert samples, but beggars can’t be choosers so I’ll take the popcorn.
Another hour went by and one of assembled mass walked up to me and commented that something was wrong. They theorized that the counters must’ve found some sort of discrepancy in the tabulation of the votes and had been forced to go back to square one in their endeavor. Either that or the abacuses were proving to be defective. Everyone ordered another drink and one by one people started to get nervous.
Then another patron commented that she wondered what type of gathering the opposing camp was having. Both of us were bored and didn’t have anything better to do, so we decided to walk down the street to the assembly site for our competition and look in the window. Curiosity is an extremely strong social trait in most human beings and this was no exception.
Since it’s springtime here in Silverton with its requisite schizophrenic weather patterns, the sun had already set. Consequently neither of us was dressed appropriately for the occasion. We glanced in the window, saw that things weren’t too crazy inside, and then quickly walked back up the street to the gathering site for our side.
A few folks that were there previously, had left and vote totals still hadn’t come in. More drinks were ordered and conversation veered off into all sorts of tangents. How was your vacation to Death Valley last month? What’s your favorite new television show? That new pair of skis worked pretty well this past winter. Now that the streets are finally drying out, is it time to take my bicycle out for the summer? Why doesn’t the Supreme Court decide on life and death issues such the size and variety of food offerings at Baseball stadiums instead of trivial matters like health care? Somebody is going to steal those new trashcans on the 4th of July. Why haven’t scientists figured out where individual socks disappear to when clothes are taken out of the dryer?
Finally around 10:30 the vote totals came in and when announced some cheers erupted, while a few jeers went out as well. Our valley hadn’t imploded like some folks thought, and there will be a sunrise tomorrow. I staggered home soon after that.
Why had it taken so long for the vote tabulations to come in? There aren’t very many registered voters here in Silverton so what’s the deal? Because there were so many candidates had this diluted the vote counts?
Here’s my expert analysis of the situation. The final vote count was actually finished around 7:30, but the owners of the two establishments where the results were announced had previously met with town government officials. During the secret rendezvous it was mutually decided by everyone assembled that vote totals wouldn’t be announced till late. That way the owners of the respective businesses could increase revenues by having lots of customers drink themselves into semi-inebriated stupors.
