Sugar and Spice

I'm doing it. I'm officially writing the 'What If' post. I'm so damn sick of sitting in a trendy little cafe full of trendy little tee-shirts sporting trendy little faux-hawk owners and downing stella by the gallon to wash away the looming despair as one by one the hot states of the country set fire to the whole damn map. So this year, in a spate of realism, I'm preparing myself for that reliable disappointment that marches around every 4th November 5th. Let's be honest, I've seen 17 years of republicanism in my 25 big ones. Fortifying against a post-election month awash in doom and gloom might not be all that bad...

So, let's start off with some slow pitch. If McCain gets elected, the first thing that we know we won't have to do is throw a bazillion parades. Thank goodness because parades suck. I don't know what ticker tape is but I'm pretty sure it's damn expensive. And what's more, mass produced cake-icing tastes like dirty sponges, euphoria is BOUND to give way to depression, 'freedom' bubbly has the carbon footprint of Mars, and isn't it a tad dangerous having all our firetrucks carousing about so far from the bell? Exactly. So if McCain gets elected, we'll avoid what we now know to be the fire hazard of a gazillion parades when we bring all the troops home. Sweet. I can definitely get on board with that float.

But there's more than smoke inhalation to avoid! If McCain gets elected, we'll be sure to get the very best that mathematics has to offer. I was recently at Yom Kippur services in Manhattan and, I'm no Jew, but I'm pretty sure money is one of those things that gets routinely rubbed in pork fat and therefore avoided on Jewish High Holy days, right? Regardless, the plea for donations was the best damn part of the service. They used a field of math I'd never seen before wherein the requested contributions as well as the semi-annual dues were quoted both by the individual and then the couple. So to join the synagogue, one would have to cough up $1,800 by one's lonesome or $3,600 if you're going tandem. Achem. Not having eaten all day brought my mind to a grinding halt at those figures. I broke out the little piggies before I finally resorted to the calculator on my phone. Good thing we were already in synagogue, repent little piggies, repent!

And then it dawned on me, they were beating me to the fortification by offering an easy transition to the field of mathematics that McCain uses: 'magical math'! Have you ever noticed that when he talks about tax rebates, everything starts to sparkle? Why not give a $5,000 tax rebate to couples and $2,500 tax rebates to individuals?? GENIUS! And while we're at it, we'll point out that Obama doesn't engage in this super duper magical math. LAME-O. In Obama's world, there won't be any tax hikes for couples making less than a mere $250K per annum whilst the similar notion holds true for any individual making less than $200K! See?!?

Uh oh. I think we just came to a draw on magical math...

Ok, moving on to our final feel-good on November 5th fact. If John McCain gets elected, at 72 years of age, he'll be exactly 4.8 years beyond the average life expectancy of men in America. If we tack on a couple of years to that average for military service (all that testing does a body good) and maybe 1.5 years for having married into a wealthy family and, finally, we'll give him a solid 12 months of credit for having most of his assests listed in his wife's name, then by the time he takes office in January, 2009 (God willing), he'll officially be just passing the 'adjusted' average life expectancy of an American man who was in the military and married rich and didn't fuss when his wife dealt with all their (her) assets. Amazing! This means CAKE and PARADES and TICKER TAPE every single day that he wakes up in office!!!

Because if we can't celebrate the end of an occupation or the transparent use of math or the fact that I went to synagogue... we might as well try the 'cholesterol, stampede, projectile surprise' impeachment approach. It just seems like a nicer, faster way to "Kill Kill Kill."