Don’t vote

Don’t Vote. You don’t have to. No one’s going to make you. This isn’t the Soviet Union — you won’t be forced from your beds and dragged to the polls against your will. Just relax; it’ll all be fine without you.

Things are pretty good the way they are, aren’t they? Well, okay, some stuff could be better. Then again, could be worse. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, leave it alone. Who knows, maybe it’ll fix itself. Or let someone who knows what they’re doing fix it. What if you make things worse? How would you feel then?

It’s a pointless exercise. You’re only one person. What possible difference could a single vote make? Forget Florida — that was a long, long time ago. You’re not going to change anything. And everyone knows those absentee ballots are impossible to fill out and they don’t fit in the envelope and then you’ve got to find a post office and a lot of them aren’t even open anymore.

Besides, you’ve seen the ads. Who could vote for any of these people? According to the television, they’re all crooks. Corrupt agents working for special interests connected to the Chinese government or representatives of a dark criminal conspiracy whose ulterior motive is to enslave our children and extort money for tropical junkets so they can cavort with naked room service waiters.

They’re all alike. It’s like choosing between slamming your fingers in a car door or slicing a three-inch gash in your thigh with a rusty screwdriver. Not just the lesser of two evils, but more like the evil of two lessers. It’s just a puppet show. Don’t you realize you’re being played? Politics is fixed, man. The Tri Lateral Commission runs everything. If voting were actually effective, they would have been made it illegal by now.

It’s all so confusing. You’re supposed to know whether some barren, deserted beach does or doesn’t get blanketed by a thick film of 30- weight because of offshore drilling? Find another beach. What’s the big deal? What do you care if your 401(k) is now a 100.25(k); you’re not planning on retiring soon, are you? Good. Best not.

Don’t you have better things to do than stand in line in some smelly garage? You could work on that extra room for Grandma so that it’s ready for her when she moves in after the nursing home loses its subsidized funding. Or you could spend that time waving bye-bye to the paramedic unit and rec center while taking a farewell trip on your local mass transit system. That would be fun.

No one’s going to blame you — who’s to know? If voting is a right, so should not voting be a right. For some people, Tuesdays are just bio-rhythmically bad. Just stay home today.

But do remember: if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch. And you do do plenty of that, don’t you?

Will Durst is a San Francisco based political humor columnist who frequently tells jokes. Check out his CD “Raging Moderate” on iTunes and Amazon.