Rattle the vote
My daughter said her first word the other day. It was “Obama.”
This came out of the blue, on Wednesday morning of all times. I had watched election coverage the night before and thought Obama would probably win, but I hadn’t yet found out for sure. And I was actually wondering, just meaning to fire up CNN and take a look when the baby just sort of announced it to me: “Obama. Obama.” Smart girl. She’s just like one of those news anchors, except that she still craps in her pants. So like I said, she’s just like one of those news anchors.
Now for real: I’m just reporting this as fact. I am not making a political statement. I’ve gotten comments from conservatives who think I’m leaning too far left on this blog of late, but I’m not leaning left so much as I’m leaning toward the easier target. Believe me, if Barack Obama made the faces that John McCain makes, I’d be posting his photo everywhere. But he doesn’t.
But don’t trust me. Try it yourself. Do a Google images search for “funny McCain picture” and you get the photos we all know and love. Do the same for “funny Obama picture,” and you get clever fakes as well as things like this:
I’m not saying that I love Obama (though I do like him) or that I don’t like McCain (because I do). All I’m saying is that my daughter has clearly chosen sides and that not once — NOT FUCKING ONCE — has she said “McCain.” And this despite the fact that my mother has surely been whispering it to her, coaching her in the same way my stepfather has tried to teach my son to say “Go Steelers” to infuriate my Browns-fan wife.
So don’t blame me. I’m trying not to be too partisan. You want to argue politics with someone, you come argue with my baby. Just know that she’s not offended by the prospect of socialized healthcare, and that she may well be gassy.
So yeah. Wednesday morning, I’m in my office and she’s saying “Oh-baaah-ma!” and it occurs to me that the Obama campaign has been so grassroots and viral that there is a distinct possibility that our new president-elect was born Barack Heffernan. Maybe the surname we know was the brainchild of some clever campaign manager who knew a bit about building brand mindshare with young Americans. Because really, everyone knows that politicians can’t win if they don’t get along well with babies. They smile at babies, they kiss babies, they smile while dressing up like Kiss for babies. And inevitably, the parent is going to coach the baby, to say, “Can you smile for the nice man?” And then they say his name. And then boom, checkmate, game over. Because who would a baby rather coo to? “Oh-baaah-ma” or “Mik-kane?” What kind of babies can grapple with “McCain”?
Irish babies, that’s who. And they’re drunk most of the time anyway.
The time change continues to suck
I’m up at 5am, again, because my 6 month-old daughter has embarked on an anthropological study to see how much of this I can take.
To most people, 5am is an ungodly hour — one they pass dreamily while camping nude with the Rockettes in pre-war Germany or fixing a birdfeeder with their girlfriend from junior high. 5am is not a time when you’re up, reading Tweets that don’t concern you. It’s not a time you should be deleting Viagra spam email. It’s a time that you should be asleep — blissfully, forgetfully asleep. Ah, how I miss sleep.
But instead, here I am, awake. And about the only good thing I have going on is that it’s quiet at 5am — except for this baby here, who agrees with me about this stupid time change.
Let’s start with a little history lesson. Approximately 120 years ago (or maybe even longer), either God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe and programmed the sun to rise in the morning and set at night, which was a pretty good system as it lined up well with when most people were asleep or awake. He then created time zones, and decreed that said Zones shall not necessarily follow state boundaries, even though that would have been less confusing. In His infinite wisdom, He placed California three hours behind the east coast, thus ensuring that the two worlds would forever be incompatible with and alien to one another, even prior to and following Schwarzenegger’s tenure as governor. Then, because He was late for a Toastmasters meeting, He trusted the mortals to assign times to the zones and wrote His instructions on an amulet, which He gave to Karen Allen. And it was good.
But an evil French man named Belloq tried to steal the amulet. He crafted his own Staff of Ra to take to the Map Room at sunrise, but did not take back one kadam of its length to honor God, and was shown the wrong times. And while Indiana Jones followed soon after, Jones was thrown into a tomb filled with snakes and the correct information was lost forever. So for half of the year, we travel back in time one hour and live our lives in increased darkness. Having solved the problem of shortening days by making it worse, thus were the dumb Children of Earth pwned, so sayeth the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Amen.
I hate the time change. I don’t say that lightly, like saying I hate nuts in brownies. I mean that I want to find the time change where it sleeps, slit its throat, and eat its brains. I want to burn its house, destroy its crops, and salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again. I want to kill its livestock and sell it to Longhorn Steakhouse. I want to convert its pets to Scientology and record over all of its TiVo programs with reruns of Eight is Enough.
It’s terrible that we have this time change, but honestly, what makes it worse it the welcome it receives. My fellow citizens have sold out! People, you are given one extra hour of sleep on one night — true. But the price you pay is five months of darkness at 5pm! Yet people don’t see that. They only see their forty acres and a mule.
Well, no longer.
I say we fight the time change. And in fact, let’s go in the other direction. Move your clocks two hours forward, negating last weekend’s change and then reversing it. Let’s go to work two hours earlier than yesterday and then leave two hours earlier. Let’s reclaim 7pm. And, let’s reclaim 5am.
My daughter has started the movement already. Who’s with us?