And Now, A Moment Of Silence...

Thankfully, today is Primary Election day, 2010.

The day long looked forward to as the day my phone will go silent.

The politicians, trying to compensate for the ridiculously high cost of advertising here in California, and in an attempt to make their campaign dollars go ever-further, seem to have ALL discovered the use of "robo-calls" AT ONCE this particular election cycle.

I must be a V.I.P., though --

In the past couple of weeks, I've been called by Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner, Tom McClintock, Sarah Palin... I even got calls from ol' "never-complete-a-term-he'd-been-elected-for-in-an-office-he'd-been-elected-to-so-he-could-run-for-yet-another-elective-office-that-he'd-vowed-not-to-run-for" Pete Wilson, himself... oh, brother...

I was crushed when I learned that Sarah Palin called 649,999 other likely California voters, and not just me... 

I have literally been getting 8-10 (some days even more) of these intrusive, damned phone calls by automated phone banks urging me to vote this way or that, for this candidate or that, for or against this or that statewide proposition...

...it has been truly maddening!  I even picked up the phone yesterday (I usually just let my answering machine "screen" out these political calls) and screamed at the recording, "...one more... ONE MORE of these damned calls and you will drive me to NOT VOTE!"

Of course the pre-recorded message droned on, undeterred by my rant.  I felt foolish afterward for yelling at a recorded message.  It was kind of like swearing at the coffee table after you've stubbed your toe on it.  The coffee table doesn't care.  Like the political message, the table just carries on... 

So today, I have one blessed day of telephone silence, and I am already enjoying it.  I may prepare a pork roast in celebration.  If I were still a drinking man, I'd open a bottle of Johnnie Walker Gold.

The damned phone will start ringing off the hook again tomorrow... all the way to next November's General Election, so I savor these few hours of phone silence bliss.

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