I'm really gonna miss all the talking about vaginas -- things that should go in them like transvaginal probes, and things that should come out of them, like more babies. And of course things that should NOT go into them, like unmarried penises, anything belonging to other women, and birth-control devices.
And I'm really going to miss all the accurate medical information about vaginas, like how they shut down rape and can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
All the crazy talk about women having abortions just confused the hell outta me, because apparently ladies have other parts connected to vaginas -- a mess of wacky tubes and whatever, but thank sweet baby Jesus that I was told these mysterious "up in there" things weren't important, abortions are only for dirty whores, and as long as I find a good man to marry me and keep me honest and pure, everything about my strange, sheltered lady-parts will be right as rain, since my vagina and its attachments aren't really my business, anyway.
4. Class out the ass.I learned so much about classism from the 2012 election. I learned that 47 percent of the people in the United States don't pay income taxes, are dependent on the government and are victims who refuse take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
What a bunch of codswallop! For the love of little green apples, why don't these filthy, lazy, welfare-draining, marijuana-addicted poor people just get decent jobs, pay their fair share of taxes and stop begging for change outside of every local Starbucks? Don't these scuzzy degenerates know that the hard-working, taxpaying citizens of this great nation need that spare change to tip the baristas?
Rich folks are very much put-upon in this country, expected to fork over wads of fold so that nearly half the population can drink malt liquor, eat canned tamales, smell their own armpits and watch The Daily Show. And middle-class people get all the attention. It seems like every politician who was running for office this year vowed to cut their taxes and buy them all ponies. Sure, ponies are majestic creatures and make great suburban pets, but who is going to end up feeding them and walking them? I'm going to miss learning about classism because before this election, I was under the mistaken and naïve impression that things like food, clothing, shelter and access to health care and education for everyone were what technologically and socially advanced societies held as the standard of a social covenant.
3. Facebark biting.I'm seriously going to miss how interesting Facebook got during the election. There I was, checking my feed like 78 times a day so I wouldn't miss out on any adorable photos of pets in packing boxes, vid clips of whatever Daniel Tosh said the day before, photo clusters of the same jar of organic, gluten-free, all-natural, local vegan mayonnaise or heartfelt paragraphs about how Fifty Shades of Grey completely changed the face of human sexuality, when all of a sudden, the entire tone of Facebook transformed from lighthearted banter and first-world nostalgia to a sweaty, screaming, Bud Light-fueled professional wrestling brawl circa 1989.
No more out-of-focus pictures of toddlers' birthday cakes or status updates about using extra fabric softener. Instead, the entire site was Romney supporters telling Obama supporters they were flower-f*cking hippie, red commie, utopian homosexuals, and Obama supporters telling Romney supporters that they were racist, sexist gun-toting, Jesus-freaking huckle-bucks.
This shit got real-real -- it was family member against family member, friend against friend, everyone using badly photo-shopped memes as weapons, and some guy I went to high school with that I talked to maybe twice defriended me because his therapist told him that political discourse was "triggering." Election night culminated in keyboard warfare the likes of which I'd never seen before, and haven't seen since (I may have gotten hammered and told everyone on my friends list to "eat gubmint cheese and suck my big, fat exit pole") but the morning after it was back to puppies, kittens, daises, e-share groupons and vid clips of baby monkeys eating soup.
I miss Facebook having a pulse.
2. Defending undecideds.Undecided voters are among the most misunderstood voters out there, and election year 2012 was not only stressful for them, but also for me because I was white-knighting them. Registered voters who had already made up their minds on who to vote for with more than a couple of weeks to spare were flinging all sorts of disparagement and insults at undecideds, accusing them of being ignorant, lazy, stupid, detached from the American political process, and being coddled by politicians, thus causing the election discourse to be unnecessarily dumbed down to the level of a preschool classroom complete with naptimes and little boxes of milk.
That was just rude.
These undecided voters were being unfairly targeted for ridicule by folks who think they are so superior because they took the time and effort to research the candidates, their platforms and past voting records, and wanted to properly and thoroughly assess how current and future domestic and foreign policy leanings could potentially affect their lives and those of their families and friends.
Every chance I got I made sure to tell those bookish, uppity, intellectual types that undecided voters deserved the utmost respect for being involved in the political process at all, and Google-searching presidential candidates takes time away from really important things like watching people pop zits on YouTube, downloading porn and old Adam Sandler movies -- and chilling. Politics is confusing, what with all those people on cable news channels talking about what candidates wanna do rather than what they are wearing and who they are sleeping with, and it's just easier to wait until the last minute to make important decisions like who to vote for, and which diet vitamin water makes you fart less.
1. The swift kick in the ads.I was thinking to myself in late 2011, "ZOMG! I sure wish that there were more political advertisements to enhance my mental stimulation and emotional well-being!" And like a fairy-wish granted to me on a massive 'shroom trip, they appeared. There were candidate and issue ads on the television, radio, on the sides of buses and taxicabs, on T-shirts, hoodies, bumper stickers, ballpoint pens, pet toys, frozen dinners, yard signs and on the caps of my Grammy's IBS medication bottles.
And then the ball dropped on 2012, and it got really crazy.
Apparently the surfeit of political ads enhanced the well-being of everyone around me as well. I found it charming when neighbors on each side of me had opposing yard signs -- one had "Obama/Biden" and the other "Romney/Wossisface" -- and every day one sign would be defaced in some way, and the next day the other one would have a steaming pile of fresh dog crap in front of it. When Halloween came around and parents in my neighborhood were ordering their children not to trick-or-treat at houses with window signs of candidates they didn't support, I thought that was adorable. And when I had to watch hours upon hours of television ads I found them very helpful, because otherwise how would I have heard that Mitt Romney had lamps in his houses made from the skins of poor people, or that Obama wore togas and wanted to hook up vacuum cleaners to rich peoples' wallets?
I heard some people complaining that there were just too many ads, but I thought there weren't enough ads, because how else was I going to learn about President Obama's secret plan to use helicopters to drop birth-control bombs and free abortion coupons on urban centers, or Romney's secret plan to bathe in the blood of poor people under the serene light of every full moon so that he could achieve immortality? I'm going to miss all the ads, most of all because now my emotions are in check, my neighbors are back to complaining about the price of cold cereal at the supermarket, and none of the things each presidential candidate said would happen actually happened. I'm bored now. I can't wait until the 2016 election -- or early 2014, when the ads will start up again.
From our archives:Red or blue, all eyes are on Colorado this election and Ten best Missed Connections to come from the 2012 election.
