Tell Me One Nice Thing About You

“Do you want to know why I am so looking forward to Wednesday?” Aaron asked before he took a huge gulp of his Snapple.

It was the Sunday before Election Day, and the best friends were seated on their favorite bench next to the river.  It was unseasonably warm for a November morning in Maine, but neither of them was complaining.

Holly shrugged and guessed.  “Because you really enjoy Hump Day?”

Aaron chuckled.  “While that is true, I’m longing for this Wednesday because it means that Election Day is done.  And when Election Day is done, there’s no more campaign ads.”

Holly nodded in agreement while she sipped her coffee.

“I could not agree more.  They’re all over the TV and radio.  And when you go outside, there are campaign signs stuck in every available piece of grassy land.”

“The thing I hate about the ads is that they’re never about why I should vote for a candidate,” Aaron continued with an edge to his tone.  “They don’t discuss their qualifications or reference their record while in office.  All they do is tell me why I shouldn’t vote for their opponent.”

“The only thing that passes for a qualification in a political ad is a shot of the candidate holding a gun, firing a gun, or daydreaming about what it would be like to have all the guns,” Holly agreed.

“Tell me one good thing about you,” Aaron pleads.  “Is that too much to ask?  It’s like going on a dating site, and instead of telling me why I should date you, you list off all the reasons I shouldn’t date the other women on the site.”

“You’re really thinking about asking out Mary?  Well she lets her kids stay up late on school nights!  And you know how you were complaining that you can’t get good New York Style Pizza anywhere around here?  That’s Tricia’s fault.  You just have to trust me on it.  And do not even give Alicia’s profile a second glance.  She allows Martian spies to live in her unfinished attic whenever they visit the planet to plot their impending invasion.”

Holly laughed at Aaron’s examples.

“And I thought those ads blaming Governor Mills for inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, and the rising cost of groceries were bad,” she quipped.

“I know, right?” Aaron said with a shake of the head.  “Did you see the ads that accused Governor Mills of closing down schools?  They forget to mention it was because of a pandemic, that students were attending classes online, and every state was doing it.  The ads make it sound like Mills was a business owner from Dickensian times who closed down the schools so that children could be forced to work in her factories all day.”

“Those were simpler times, though,” Holly quipped.

“So far, the only politician I’m eager to vote for is the one who stood along my running route, answered my questions, and then gave me a donut,” he remarked.  “Wake me up when it’s Wednesday.”

He then feigned going to sleep.  Holly rolled her eyes and took another sip of her coffee.

“I sometimes try to guess what you’re going to rant about during our Sunday chats,” she confessed.  “Today, I was sure it was going to be about turning back the clocks, claims of false time travel brought about by daylight saving time, or the perils of messing with the space/time continuum.”

Aaron grinned as he took another drink of his Snapple.

“You weren’t too far off, I suppose,” he conceded.  “Because of this stupid turning back the clocks deal, which I absolutely hate, I have to be subjected to an extra hour of campaign ads this weekend.”

“You could always turn off the TV and write,” she suggested.

“If I do that, then the bad guys win,” he informed her.  “Our forefathers fought the Revolutionary War to give us the right to vote and the right to watch TV whenever we want, especially on Sunday during the football season.”

“That’s not exactly true, but close enough I guess,” Holly sighed.

They turned their attention to the water and enjoyed a few quiet moments without any political ads.

Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday!