Of Politics, Pokemon, And Surviving The Collector Gene

Mankind survives because of the collector gene.

If you don’t believe me,

think about the family next door to you.

The ones who,

due to the fact that your great-grandmother

collected odd bits and pieces of everything that came into the stores

(and junkyards)

in the way of electric do-hickeys,

from the time the first light bulbs and fuses made their bakelite and tungsten debuts,

can now plug one of those ca 1920 fuses into their highly antiquated

and probably illegal

wiring,

and keep the overpriced “fixer-upper” house they bought,

out of desperation,

running for the next year or so,

While they put their small fix-it budget to work

on the kids room first.

Or use it to buy better air mattresses,

so they can sleep in the nearly workable kitchen.

Which means that,

from time immemorial,

when women collected the saber-tooth intestines

to make violin strings,

and brontosaurus teeth,

to make beer bottle openers,

women ruled.

And mankind survived.

More or less.

There are two small exceptions, though.

1. Politics.

And

2. Pokemons.

Not that it isn’t nice to see both of the above

emblazoned,

in garish colors,

on the front of all public buildings,

with, possibly the exception of public monuments,

or places of assembly,

or areas you have to walk past on your way to work.

And as long as no one runs over any picture takers,

or flattens someone with a Pokemon ball.

Or a political poster on a stick…

However,

to put it in a nutshell,

as a cartoon a friend sent me states:

“Ok, enough with the fun and games already.

So where are the real candidates?”

Or, to paraphrase it for modern times,

why do our candidates all look

and act

like pokemons.

Popping up all the time in weird places,

playing weird music,

making weird sounds that almost sound sort of like human speech.

As we spend immense amounts of time,

effort,

and money,

trying to understand how the game is played,

or just to understand how not to get bulldozed by them all.

And as for the collector gene:

theoretically,

men shoot it,

we women collect it.

So why aren’t any modern men out there putting all those

politicians,

both male and female,

who are supposedly involved,

and real,

but aren’t,

and pokemons,

ditto,

out of their misery.

(In a non-violent “oh yes we can, just vote none of the above” way.)

Or, asked slightly differently,

why,

since I worked so hard all my life,

in “men’s” professions,

and did darned well at them, thank you very much,

should I vote for someone just because she is female.

Or Swiss.

Because I live here in Gutenberg land.

And heaven forbid, I should not choose my candidate because of religion, race, or who their partner and children are.

So, as one of the “non-collecting”

non Pokemon

or poke-a-man, for that matter,

females

I’d like to mention a few suggestions I have.

1. There is a place in Europe, (called Belgium,) which can not decide between the French-speaking Walloons and the Germanic speaking Flemish.  So to prevent fighting, they simply had no government. And didn’t missed one for years. Sounds good to me.
2. There is an area of Germany, called the Hunsruck mountains, picture the Appalachians, where the locals have fought for generations just to survive nature, ie barren rocky land, not much grows, and ice-cold Siberian style winters, not to mention various idiot governments, so they simply made up a candidate- no such person exists, and all went well, until, many years later,  the person couldn’t be found in the official birth files (to wish him a happy birthday) and was marked dead. So the locals elected another fake person. Now that is couth.
3. There is an area of Illinois that regularly, and I admit this was told to me privately, by a friend in a small-town, and I can’t find it to verify it, elects John. Q Rabbit, a sort of partnership of two farmers, one of whom governs Mondays Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, since he has fewer children than the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday half. The system supposedly works well. I’d vote for them. (Although, I do think they could each take a day per week off, and nothing would change, as far as I can tell.

But then, I am a non-collecting, non-gathering non-politopoke female,

who would like to see, just for once in my lifetime,

someone elected because he or she is logical,

the best candidate,

has done nothing illegal,

and can open his or her mouth without promising something they won’t keep.

Someone like Mr Spock.

(Not the baby doctor)

Or maybe a team, like Sheldon Cooper and Penny,

Or, even better,

Perhaps someone like Sherlock Holmes.

Maybe in the Cumberbatch version.

And if we can create them on tv and film,

why on earth can’t the candidates watch a few of the episodes,

plus maybe the Waltons, or Little House on the Prairie,

and finally learn something.

Or am I the only one who thinks they have all been watching Game of Thrones?

Copyright Dunnasead.co 2016