To Vote, or Not To Vote

Rock the vote! Yeah! Or, don't, if you don't want to. Let me point out two things:
1.It is the duty of an American adult to be involved in the political process, yes, but not in the way MTV & Bruce Spreensteen are trying to push on Generation Y. If you don't have a clear preference or if both major candidates go against your core values, you should not vote! Pulling the lever in the booth isn't supposed to be like a slot machine! You don't do it just cuz REM & M0by are pressuring you to vote (cough, for Kerry). "Vote for something" is the Rock the Vote mantra. As in, vote for anything. Don't like the way Bush stammers? Make your voice heard! Vote him out! Against war? Hell yeah! Vote him out! Cuz your vote counts for just as much as those middle-aged squares who vote on issues. Unfortunately.

This is exploitation. The baby-killers want votes, and panderers that they are, they will pander to that largely untapped 20-something vote. We're too ADD to care about grown-up issues, so just make it cool for us. Throw parties with sign-ups for the party-goers to promise not to have sex for a week if they don't vote, and to only have sex with people who have voted for a whole week (I'm not making this up- my imagination, as wild as it is, could never have come up with that). Exploit us in such a way that we walk away feeling powerful. You, the same ones who gave us condoms in school so we don't procreate like rabbits, tell us Vote or Die! (P. Diddy's new T-shirt) Because we're grown-up enough to vote, but too lazy and stupid to do it without our favorite pop stars getting palsy with us.

2. The other thing that gags me is the sly cutesy "We're not endorsing anyone wink wink nudge nudge but you don't really want that war-mogerer for another 4 years. Just vote. For whatever. " WHAT? I want to discourage people from voting if they're going to be voting against my favored candidate! I mean, isn't that the point? To get more votes than the other guy? Isn't that what it means to support one candidate instead of another? My boss, who's college educated, mid-50s, said to me, "I guess I ought to vote this year. I haven't voted in so long. This seems like a big election. " Me, eagerly: "Who are you going to vote for?" Him, half-heartedly: "I don't know. Bush seems like an idiot, but I don't trust Kerry. And he's got a horse face." Me, pleadingly, "Don, don't vote if you're going to vote for Kerry, ok? Can you promise me that? For your best employee, can you do this favor? Huh?" The Vote For Whatever people don't have the guts to say, Vote for Kerry. They pretend like it's all good, but if that's the case, then what is so vital about everyone voting? If you're trying to garner votes for Candidate X, but under the guise of, Vote no matter what, then isn't the jig up? I mean, I know these volunteers don't care whether I, pesonally vote and make myself heard. Their goal isn't to give Mr Jones and Mrs. Smith a soap-box. They want votes for Candidate X. Just say so, you lousy jerks. But why would they? We 20-somethings are only good for our fickleness and ignorance and the votes we cast, and you rotten Hollywood bastards want to curse war on your gilded thrones and boycott the furs you hide in your closets. You want to eat your damn cake and I won't have it.
Let's take a cue from the hippies. They didn't like either candidate so they all registered just so they could write in a damn pig. Oink oink. A real pig. They made their voices heard, but it wasn't for the candidate they were pressured into voting for. Do you waste your vote by not voting? No! If you don't have a reason to vote for candidate X or Y, don't vote. Voting is a privilege. In Rome, it was for citizens, landowners. In America, it used to just be for white men, then just men, finally women too. It's not your right and it's not your placeholder in American society. It's a real pity that bumper stickers and road signs have an effect; that you can actually sway voters just by sensory overload. And it's a pity that this election will hang on the people who don't like the way Bush talks or the fact that Teresa is a train wreck. I hate to agree with the maitre'd of Chez Quis (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), but, "I weep for the future." I still hold out hope, though, that my peers will grow up when they haev to take the helm of this great nation. I think we'll be ok.

My workplace has been under heavy geriatric attack this past week- very stressful, very stressful. It seems my pharmacy has the only flu shots in all the D.C. Metropolis. "My little girl's pediatrician doesn't have any more and he said come to you! He said you were my last hope! My little girl is in chemo and has asthma! She'll die if you don't give her a flu shot!" "I'm very sorry ma'am, but it's against state law for us to administer shots to anyone under 18." "So you want my little girl to die? Maybe I should wheel her in so you can tell her that she has to die before Christmas. Explain to her that the chemo was all for nothing."
I'm paid $11.80/hour before taxes. If I had any gumption, I'd demand a dollar raise to be the harbinger of death to sick children. But that's not the worst part. Well, maybe it is. But it's not the most time-consuming part. It's the old people; between the semi-old and the really old; from the newly-retired to the How the hell is that body still functioning, I've seen a lot of old people the past week. Funny old couples who play off each other and send me into fits of hysteria (my favorite), sad old couples, widowed, etc etc etc. Old black couples, old Asian couples, fat old people, skinny old people, flirty old men, cranky old men. And they all lined up outside my store at four in the morning yesterday.
We announced that we would only have 250 shots to give on our last date, yesterday, that, as before, it's limited to high risk patients, and that we would bgin giving out numbers at 8 a.m., when the pharmacy opened. Boy do I feel stupid for telling people to be sure to be here bright & early at 8. By 8 a.m. there were 400 old people winding in a line around the grocery store. The first 200 had camped outsdie the store at 4 a.m.; some had been there all night. And then, as I stared at the uniformly old bunch, I cocked my head to the side, tweaked the picture a bit and then came a chuckle. They all brought lawn chairs and folding chairs and all sat meekly in line waiting for the doors to open so they could get their ticket and be the envy of the nursing home. Some old people met up with people they hadn't seen in years, and it was very heartwarming & all, but the thing that really tickled me pink is that they looked like teenagers who had been waiting for concert tickets for a very very long time.

I've been invited to fly out to NM to help swing the state; the RNC would pay for my airfare, natch, and I would meet all sorts of the political type people that I enjoy so much, but I probably won't do it because I'm a wimp & I can't tell my boss that I'm demanding 2 weeks off with only 10 days' notice. He brought in a birthday cake to work a few days ago (on my birthday) so I can't be cruel to him. Damn! It even had a little pink candle on it! Double damn!