I'm Voting for a Change

On Sandwiches, Senility, and the Desperate Need for a Competent Leader

Imagine, if you will, a highly anticipated new bistro opens in town. This isn’t one of those New York City-style delis where everyone who works there looks like they want to murder you and they spit in your face if you’re not ready to order when you get up to the counter; it’s an upscale eatery owned by some famous British chef that features edgy décor, magical ambiance, and a menu Pablo Neruda could have written one hell of an ode to. (Note that nothing about the place itself really matters for this analogy, except the part where I want you to be excited to imagine going there. It’s trendy and fabulous and everyone is talking about it so it’s a big freaking deal.)

You wait in line on opening day and study your options, desperate to make the perfect selection. After scrutinizing each poetic entrée summary carefully—twice—your mind is made up. “I’ll have the succulent premium roasted free-range turkey enveloped in layers of velvety brie and organic arugula nestled between two slices of grilled artisanal focaccia and dressed with a tantalizing cranberry compote, please,” you inform your server, your mouth watering just from the words.

“Excellent choice,” he responds with a wink. Well, I have always been above-average at sandwich-ordering, you gloat to yourself.

When a runner arrives with your meal, it’s all you can do to hide your shock and disappointment. I mean, if you squint really hard and maybe knock back a few quick tequila shots, the pile on your plate might look sort of vaguely like what you ordered. There’s definitely something bread-y stuffed with griege strips of what may or may not be poultry drizzled in a chunky pinkish sauce, but that’s where the visual similarities to what you were anticipating end.

Maybe it tastes better than it looks, you coach yourself hopefully as you hazard a bite. Alas, it does not. Somehow this hapless hoagie is both soggy and dry, burnt but cold, bland yet utterly repulsive. It is, without being too dramatic here, the very worst sandwich you have ever tasted in your life.

This will never not be the best sign ever created.

Now suppose, just for fun, that you’re a much kinder and more patient person than I am and you decide to go back and give it another try. Not just the place but the very same sandwich. And not just once but every single day for the next 1,460 consecutive days without even a weekend off. And no matter how diligently you will it to be different, each and every last one of those 1,460 sandwiches falls somewhere between mildly disappointing and downright dreadful.

After four long and unbroken years of this torture, if you possessed even a sliver of intelligence or a lick of common sense, you would hopefully stop frequenting that bistro altogether.  At the very least, you’d order something different.

Anything different.

Wouldn’t you? What’s the worst that could happen? Poop soup or a turd burger would be an improvement!

And yet in less than a year, there are people—millions of them, apparently—who are going to consciously, even confidently, cast a vote (again!) to re-elect our current, undeniably incompetent Commander in Chief.

At the risk of being seditious, in case you’ve been living under a bridge without Wi-Fi, the Big Guy is a hot, festering mess. How they even let the addled octogenarian orate in person or appear on camera is an unqualified mystery to me. (Before you call me ageist, I’ll have you know I’d stand in line all night to shake Dick Van Dyke’s or Jane Goodall’s hand.) Aren’t presidents supposed to have handlers? On a good day, the man’s mumbling, stumbling, creeping, sleeping, or taking a good, deep whiff of somebody who very much would rather not be sniffed (and in case you were hoping the rest of the world hadn’t noticed, Sky News Australia devoted an entire segment to “Creepy Joe”—their words, don’t arrest me for defamation!—and his insatiable need to uninvitedly nuzzle other people).  

Get yours here.

I should probably be at least a little more gracious toward a senior citizen who’s clearly socially isolated as well as cognitively impaired. He must be, if he’s managed to spend 813 months on this planet and calls his train-wreck of a second born—the rascally chap best known for making millions milking his First Son title and not just smoking loads of crack and diddling with underage escorts but filming it all, storing the wildly incriminating footage on a laptop, and then sort of losing it—“the smartest guy I know.”

Good grief, how dumb must the rest of his circle be?

Look. I love it that we still (at least for now) live in a free country. If you want to scribble your Shih Tzu’s name on your presidential ballot’s write-in line, more power to you. Vote for Kathy Griffin or one of the Tate brothers for all I care. Declare yourself a never-Trumper and vow to move to Canada if he gets reelected. (Just promise you’ll follow through this time?) Find some underdog candidate whose messaging moves you and devote your time to his or her campaign trail. Make MAGA your favorite. But for the love of liberty, I am begging you, please let Creepy Joe spend his remaining few twilight years sipping Dulcolax on a swing somewhere and not making decisions—like sending zillions of our tax dollars to Ukraine, forcing us to line up for quarterly poison shots, or allowing illegals to pour through our borders like military-age molten lava (and then giving them cash and cell phones and free health insurance um, hi Joe, is there any way I can get a piece of that action?)—that will affect ruin our lives for decades to come. Especially now that an alien invasion is all but guaranteed.

Aliens: “Take us to your leader.”

Any even modestly mentally functioning citizen: “Our leader? Uh… sure… I can definitely do that. But first… ummm… have guys ever had a Happy Meal? No? Well, hell! You can’t say you’ve been to the US until you try one! What do you say we swing by Micky D’s and then let me show you around a little? I’m thinking we hit the Statue of Liberty, swing by the Golden Gate Bridge, maybe cruise the Vegas strip—do you have drag queens on your planet?—and then it’s right over to Cawker City, Kansas. Never heard of it? Well, you’re not going to believe the size of the ball of twine they have over there. It’s got five solid stars on Yelp, no shit. You’re gonna love it. Did you bring your cameras?”

I get it. Sometimes our presidential picks can best be described as the lesser of the available evils. But if you can honestly say you’d be proud to introduce intergalactic visitors to our current POS POTUS or that you can think of a single soul (besides his felonious son) less fit to run the country, no offense but you have not been paying attention. The dude falls crawling up stairs, dozes off in high-powered meetings (*not that I’ve never done this but in my defense, I am also not the Leader of the Free World), and doesn’t seem able to count all the way to two anymore. If he was your grandpa, you’d be a decade overdue for the ‘it’s time to turn in your driver’s license, pops,’ conversation. Like it or not, Pedo Peter* is hardly qualified to call out bingo numbers, no less be in charge of millions of troops and have the keys to our nukes.

*This is actually how Hunter has his dad listed in his cell phone. You know, ‘cuz mobile Joe’s just crazy about tracking his steps. With a pedo-meter. Obviously.

I know lots of people think the actual Joe Biden was long ago replaced with an actor in a bad mask (and before you categorically dismiss that notion, please watch Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez’s TED talk where she describes—and shows—how she could basically transform Whoopi Goldberg into Brigitte Bardot). It’s not that that theory is a huge mental stretch for me; my only argument is if they were going to do that… wouldn’t they get a good actor? Someone who could deliver a coherent sentence and wouldn’t get lost on his way off a stage? Or is the actor they picked in fact a brilliantly talented performer playing an incapable nincompoop? Maybe it’s Meryl Streep in the role of her lifetime, and the goal is to see how many people will continue to prop up a president who is half as charismatic and twice as oblivious as the dead guy from Weekend at Bernie’s?

Whether he’s the real, rapidly declining deal or a bumbling body double, can we all agree it’s time for the person playing POTUS to retire? As long as his replacement’s last name doesn’t rhyme with Hintin’ or Nodrama, it’s guaranteed to be a step up.

Take it from alibaaba and snag your copy of The War on Ivermectin here.