Saturday, October 15, 2016

November the 9th

November 9th is the day after Election Day. It's also a Wednesday. That means the recycling has to be out at the curb before 6 am. No matter who wins the election, the recycling better be out at the curb by 6 or it will pile up on the steps inside my garage leading into the house for an entire week. Every time I walk past the huge pile, I will kick myself for forgetting to take it to the curb on the day after Election Day.

November 9th is also the day that my Verizon wireless bill is due. It's always due on the 9th. I pay it electronically now, placing a stamp on an envelope having suddenly become medieval. But whether or not I pay through the mail or electronically, the bill gets paid on the 9th or my wife will get an email message notifying her that the Verizon bill is late. She will then remind me to pay the Verizon bill. It will annoy me that they send a late notice to my wife, even though I'm the one who pays the stinking bill. I think it's because she's the one who established our online account or something. Still, it always annoys me. This will continue to annoy me no matter what happens on November 8th.

November the 9th will be exactly two weeks before my two incredible kids will be hitting the road driving home for Thanksgiving. When they get here, I will be very happy and thankful that they made it home safe and sound. My happiness and thankfulness will not be dimmed in the slightest by what happens on November the 8th. By the time Thanksgiving Day comes along it will be a faded memory. Kaitlin and Jon will bring their awesome dog, Jack, with them. Patrick will be bringing his adorable girlfriend, Sarah, home for the first time for Thanksgiving. Jack will be awesome and Sarah will be adorable no matter who prevails on November 8th.

On January the 20th, 2017 the winner on November 8th will be inaugurated. It just so happens that Henrico County real estate taxes on my office condo are due that day. I can assure you that if I don't get that bill paid on time, I'm going to hear about it on Monday morning the 23rd! My county is dead serious about getting paid. Whoever the new President is, he or she will be of little help to me if I stiff Henrico County, this I can tell you.

For a small government Libertarian like me perhaps the single most annoying aspect of the 2016 election has been the overblown cosmic existential importance it has taken on. To hear some of my friends talk, you would think that the fate of all life on planet earth literally hangs in the balance of this Olympian struggle between good and evil, republican and democrat, liberal and conservative, male and female. Maybe they're right. Or. . . maybe some geek in a garage in Buffalo invents a perpetual motion device that produces clean energy out of apple cores, rendering politicians obsolete.

We will have a new President on January 20th, 2016. But, the grass will still need to be mowed, the leaves raked, the snow shoveled. We will still go to work, do our jobs, and love our children. And on the day after Election Day, we will still have to remember to take out the recycling.


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