26 Ways to Have Fun on Election Day

A Listicle

File: Benjamin Harrison-Morton American Flag Handkerchief, 1888 (4359404965).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Well, here we are, about to endure another election. Doesn’t it feel like they come faster and faster? I suppose that’s my age betraying me. I read somewhere that time seems to go slowly for the young because everything is so new, and there is, as it were, sensory overload, which produces both a sense of wonder, but also, occasionally, a sensation of everything dragging on interminably. Whereas, when you are old, you aren’t learning anything, and so everything rushes by you. At the time I thought that seemed backward. But, you know, studies show etc. etc. Honestly, this year has been going by unreasonably fast and uncomfortably slow all at the same time. Every poll, every new horrifying news cycle seems to make it drag on forever and ever.

So here are some ways to enjoy the day, courtesy of me being stick-a-fork-in-it-done with all the madness, which, according to all the pundits, is only just beginning. These are delineated by letters, rather than numbers, but the letters do not match the beginning word of each piece of sage advice. To do that I would have needed to really have my wits about me but that is beyond my capabilities right now. Off we go!

A. Make sure and board up your windows if you live in DC, like this.

B. Scroll mindlessly through tons and tons of memes:

C. Watch this video which is a good representation of American politics.

D. Panic and buy matches and candles on Amazon, forgetting that by Wednesday the whole world might have burned down and nothing will matter anymore.

E. Agonize for a few more hours about who to vote for. Check the polls again to see if they have changed within the last few minutes.

F. Look up each party’s platform and do deep breathing exercises.

G. Go out and buy a lot of t-shirts and ballcaps, for that is the appropriate garb of the American Electorate during Election Season.

H. Go and listen to all the music of all the artists that have shilled for both candidates. Except for Cardi B, for those lyrics will surely send your gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.

I. Check in on random influencers to see if they’ve sold out. Breathe a sigh of relief when you discover they haven’t.

J. Watch some podcasts from people in other countries to more fully taste the insanity of being an American every four years. Scroll around and see what’s going on abroad to discover that it’s really bad everywhere.

K. Decide to be a person who rises above politics, who doesn’t care, who just goes to church and prays a lot. Work hard on that while scrolling around all the anxiety articles in the New York Times. Gosh, they do not seem happy over there.

L. Clean your house. Look, these are just suggestions. I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.

M. Phone a friend, or, in the parlance of the day, get into a Voice Call on Discord with a whole group of people whose connections are sketchy and who are all distracted by social media. Really embrace the experience of being very very very online.

N. Throw caution to the wind and go buy a complicated and high-maintenance pet with emotional problems.

O. Think about prepping. Sure, it’s way way way too late, but at least you’ll feel like you’re doing something.

P. Take up a hobby, like stress-eating bread and cheese and chips and salsa.

Q. Pray the Daily Office. However distracted you are, it will probably calm your nerves to go through the motions.

R. Whatever you do, don’t message me to tell me you aren’t worried about the future because, by prayer and supplication, you are busy making all your requests known to God so it will be fine etc. etc. I will come at you with the fury of a thousand suns.

S. Be tired enough not to fight your children who decide to have “an election party.” Hate them silently for not cleaning when it’s things you care about and only things that they care about.

T. Read Psalm 119 in one sitting. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

U. Pray the Great Litany.

V. Try to buy sackcloth on the internet.

W. Spend an hour fretting over the tension between feasting and fasting, celebration and discipline, worry and complacency, God’s freedom and man’s, and why all the time “saving” devices are such a time suck.

X. Treat yourself to a bouquet of flowers.

Y. Remember that no human system of government will ever make you completely comfortable because, in the words of this week’s collect, “we live among things that are passing away,” and therefore it would behoove us to “love things heavenly” and “to hold fast to things that shall endure,” like Jesus, etc. etc.

Z. Give up and go vote.

So anyway, have a nice day!