“Gnarly Trombone: Beware of phone calls, strange mail”

Gnarly Trombone: Beware of phone calls, strange mail

Posted: 02 Oct 2010 12:25 PM PDT

It began yesterday, you know.

Oct. 1.

A lot of you thought it started months or years ago, when They first began harassing us, but no — it REALLY starts now.

Political Stuff.

That special bunch of people called "Those Who Are Running," will really start running now, pushing toward Election Day, which is just a month away, and they have all this money they have to get rid of, so they'll start badgering us more than ever.

They'll call each other names, attack each other, kick each other in the butt, try to run over each other with a bus, and do everything they can to make the other guy look bad.

Many times, it reminds you of a schoolyard fight, where you don't like either fighter, and you hope some way they can both lose.

So, we voters need to warn Those Who Are Running that they're doing some things wrong. If they REALLY want our votes, they need to listen.

» The politicians already know how much their TV ads drive us crazy. They must know that. They can't be so naive to think we ENJOY watching the same accusatory, redundant ads every

10 minutes. They have to know that's why God invented the MUTE button.

»You can stop calling us at home any time now. You know when they call and ask for your vote: The phone ID will usually light up as "Nonregistered Number" or just have a number with a strange area code such as "666." When you answer their phone calls, there won't be anyone there at first. Sometimes you have to wait several seconds until they (either a real person or a recorded person) comes on the line to ask you to vote for their candidate. Here's the new rule, political callers: We answer the phone, say "hello" twice, and then we hang up. If you aren't dedicated enough to answer our first "hello," we don't want to listen to you.

»It's the same with e-mails. We're tired of them. They come in with subject lines like "Bringing America Together," or "Now is the Time to Commit," or "ACT NOW!!!!!" (I especially like the ones with several exclamation points) and Political

E-Mailers need to know we delete them without even reading them. And we ain't sending you any money.

»Haven't gotten too many yet, but our regular mail should be increasing soon, with colorful cards with politicians' photos on them, smiling and promising to save our country from what the other guy is doing. Trash can.

»Yard signs and signs along the streets and signs as big as a movie screen continue to pop up all over town. This puzzles some of us. Do you really believe that drivers are going past the signs and we see them and say to ourselves: "Gee, look at that big sign. I guess I'll vote for that guy because of the pretty colors." Do you think we're idiots?

»One of our favorites are the pollsters, which call the house at night, while I'm watching some intellectual drama like "The Three Stooges Go To Mars," and the pollster says they just need a few minutes of our time for a Very Valuable Poll. And then they'll ask questions like: "Do you agree with the Federal Health Care Plan, which would plunge us all into poverty and cause plagues to overrun our country and little children will starve? Yes or No?" Or, "How do you feel about illegal people coming into our country and robbing banks and kicking small puppies and not washing their fruit properly, and the other candidate wants to give them free money and give them a better house than yours? And one other thing: Little children will starve. Vote yes or no."

Well, now that The Campaign will start running in high gear this month, and we know what is coming, we just want all of you Runners to know we're already tired of you.

How about this ad: The candidate announces, "Instead of spending millions of dollars on asinine ads this month, we're going to send every voter a T-bone steak. And baked potato."

That's the candidate who'd get my vote.

The name Gnarly Trombone was taken from an 1871 Cincinnati newspaper that misread Horace Greeley's handwritten name of the Greeley Tribune. Mike Peters is a Tribune staff writer. He may be e-mailed at mpeters@greeleytribune.com.

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