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Is Opportunity Knocking?

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02:20 / 10.07.04

I live about a 10 or 15 minute drive from my parents's house; this can be convenient for things like babysitting, and inconvenient for things like fixing the computer. In general, I think it's a pretty good deal. We get along. My parents, they have a wide social network, and you can never tell who might be popping in for one reason or another.

So today, picking up the baby from grandma's house, I learn that the daughter of an old family friend who lives about two hours up the coast is coming to stay for a week or two... just until she can find an apartment to rent in the area until November. She's a recent college graduate en route to law school.

But she's taking time out to be the campaign coordinator for the Bush/Cheney campaign for Palm Beach County.

She'll be sleeping in my old bedroom. Probably eating meals at the dinner table, at least from time to time.

So... what does one do in a situation like this?

Bear in mind, this is Palm Beach County. Home of the Election 2000 butterfly ballot. The swingingest county in a very swingy state in what could be a very close election.

Think hard.

Suggestions on a postcard, please.

06:51 / 10.07.04

ew! i don't know what to say that's helpful, but that's my first thought. yuck. sleeping in yr room? that's almost like sleeping w/the enemy. yikes!

XXII:X:II = XXX

07:14 / 10.07.04

Invite over a couple hundred of the thousands of people who were illegally scrubbed from the voter rolls in 2000 for sharing a surname or a birthdate with convicted felons, or for simply committing the crime of being black in the deep South. Just enough of them that they would have tipped the vote in Gore's favor, even by the questionable recount totals. Allow them to register their complaint with a representative of the party that engineered that "bureaucratic error." I'd be very surprised if she could still go out and cheerlead for the bastards after an encounter like that.

Am I to take it your parents are GOP-favorers, allowing someone of those purposes to camp out in such a familial way? You have my condolences if so. They ought to meet that throng, too.

/+,

08:33 / 10.07.04

Maybe you could play your Sting albums really loud and leave copies of The Invisibles lying around, and if that doesn't work, make her watch Micheal Moore pseudo-documentaries with her eyes pried open Clockwork Orange-style, then keep her in a pit in the basement- "It counts the ballot and it puts the ballot in the basket, or it gets the hose!", or maybe you could mind your own fucking business, stalky.

11:45 / 10.07.04

Vlad: Am I to take it your parents are GOP-favorers, allowing someone of those purposes to camp out in such a familial way?

They're fairly apolitical, actually, although my mother suspects the Clintons of killing Vince Foster.

I'm not sure I know anyone who was removed from the rolls.

keep her in a pit in the basement- "It counts the ballot and it puts the ballot in the basket, or it gets the hose!", or maybe you could mind your own fucking business, stalky.

Well, the basement thing seems inhospitable (besides which, we don't have a basement -- water table's too high), and the minding my own business thing seems far too sensible.

12:08 / 10.07.04

Some sort of passive agressive reverse psychology, maybe? Try to convince her that all those people were really grateful to have their votes not count, and the best thing for Bush to do would be to come down and take credit for it. And that the perfect PR oppertunity to promote family values would be to French-kiss his brother on the beach.

Or, more practically speaking, you could accidentally spill some tea or other liquid all over her laptop. Possibly tea with magnets in it.

12:29 / 10.07.04

..I'm assuming a crazy scheme involving experimental drugs, mind control techniques and Manchurian Candidate style hypnotism would probably do more harm than good in the long run, right?

so how about a considerably less fun but safrer scheme along the lines of; recruting some allies, compiling facts and inviting yourselves to dinner and then taking every oppurtunity to casually reiterate the events surrounding the 2000 election fiasco, the difficulties of maintaining a functional democracy when the overall result depends on such bizarre and fragmentary situations and so on and so forth..

Sounds stupid when set out like that admittedly, but I wouldn't underrate the potential of differing points of view delivered in a polite and relaxed manner - republican-type politics have a tendency to thrive in atmospheres where everybody gets redfaced and shouty and emotional (which sadly seems to be the default setting for politics in America at the moment, or so it seems), so I think the idea of playing it cool, friendly and non-oppositional could go a long way re: discussing things with people face to face.

Apologies if that all sounds completely ludicrous.

subcultureofone

12:38 / 10.07.04

i vote for everything everyone has suggested so far, starting with the scrubbed voter mob and building up to the “basement”- what about the tool shed? and with the addition of large doses of psychedelics. also, before sabotaging her computer, get the mailing list and arrange for that to be the next set of names purged from the voter roles. and what about bugging your old room? playing subliminal suggestions while she sleeps? or lots and lots of fireants.

17:17 / 10.07.04

Fuck all that shit, just kill and eat her.

Or, more seriously, just start campaigning damn hard for Kerry/Edwards. Invite all your Kerryfriends over to your parents' regularly for meetings, barbecues, keg parties whatever ("but Mom, my place is too small, and Kerry's just too damn popular!"), and most importantly, make sure your bedroom is Campaign HQ. Sure, she can still sleep/work there, as long as she understands it was your room before it was hers, they're your 'Kerry 04' posters, and yes, they maybe all over the walls and the floor and the ceiling, but no, they're not coming down.

It's not going to lead her to a Damascus Road-style conversion (though you're not going to get that before November anyway, whatever you do), but it might piss her off, and it might be funny (I'd laugh, certainly).

Also, all the campaigning you and your mates will be doing could help fling those ratfuck bastards out of The Whitehouse. Which would also be even funnier and piss her off even more.

15:49 / 11.07.04

Now that I've slept on it, I'm torn between
* actual curiosity about what she could say in Bush's favor that could possibly persuade me, a Florida third- (well, fifth-)party swing voter, and
* a perverse desire to print up "Bush/Satan '04" stickers nearly identical to the real campaign stickers and, well, sneak them around places.

02:38 / 12.07.04

Don't listen. It's a trick. Get yourself a "Republicans for Voldemort" t-shirt and remember the children are counting on you not to use your swing vote for evil.

02:52 / 12.07.04

Given that eating one more Bush-Cheney planner isn't going to make much difference overall, I'd use the opportunity to try to get information as to what the strategies were going to be.

It'd require some degree of schmoozing - but grant, you're a tabloid journalist. Tchoh. Unless I've misread the situation this should be piss-easy.

Finding out what they're concentrating on is going to be much more interesting than any trapping in holes.

06:34 / 12.07.04

Get yourself a whole mess of those mind-control bugs like in Flash Gordon od Wrath of Khan. We could use a puppet on the inside. Maybe rig her so she'll explode at the exact moment that Bush accepts the Republican nomination. Not that I'm bitter at all...

flufeemunk effluvia

13:07 / 12.07.04

I'm pretty sure they might be giving kerry-edwards stickers away online... Get one and put it on her car when she sint looking. While you're at it, take out sever key and expensive-looking components of her engine. Bury them.

Petty infighting for democracy!

13:49 / 12.07.04

Pry the W key off her computer while you're at it. Glue it to her forehead while she sleeps.

14:47 / 12.07.04

Sally, if this was a contest, you would so be winning it.

fridge: the obtaining of information is one of the things I think about, but who do I give it to? I guess I could find a Kerry person. Hmm.

15:49 / 12.07.04

Find out why she wants to do such a thing? Amazing, scary, freaky weirdness... So, uh, politely chat with her. Don't harangue her (this would be a note to self - I can get quite passionate about politics - I'm sure you're much more sensible). Um, find out why she wants to do such a thing? And then tell us. Have a few drinks. Talk about politics (I mean she must care deeply about the subject, surely?). Try not to turn red and rant. Um, find out why she wants to do such a thing? And then tell us. Is she religious? How odd. Wow disturbing. Does she have any other really warped proclivities? I mean, I'm sure she's very nice, but it is kind of difficult not to equate an active support of Bush/Cheney with pure evil, isn't it? Wooh, please tell us how you get on.

23:21 / 12.07.04

grant, i've given this some thought and i think the best thing for you to do is to act like yr pro-bush, and all yr friends are pro-bush, in fact, everyone you've ever spoken to, met, or even glanced at is pro-bush. perhaps in some small way you can make this person think that the election is going to be easily won, and thus allow hir to slack on hir duties, somewhat?

18:28 / 13.07.04

Well, Grant, I know you're a happilly married man, but is there any way you could involve her in a really sordid and gruesome sex scandal?

Come on, buddy, just tell the missus that you're taking one for the team....

Barring that, quote her as a source in one of your articles claiming that Bush secretly met with Satan last month in a honeymoon suite in Niagra.

21:05 / 13.07.04

Pff. It's not a sex scandal until at least three people are involved, so the missus could be in on it too. Of course for a proper sex scandal, you'll also be needing a mess of equipment, including sound and video recording, as well as some sort of reptile.

And if you want it to be sordid, cripes, you'll probably need to molest a manatee. Remember, the Republicans brushed off the whole thing with Seven-of-Nine's ex husband, if you want a scandal to stick, you've got to make it... well, sticky.

Tryphena Absent

21:07 / 13.07.04

Seems to me that you're going to be in an area that you know extremely well. You're never going to be in a better position to get rid of a Republicans rotting corpse. Do it. Make the world a better place. Sacrifice your innocence for the cause.

21:26 / 13.07.04

Yeah, but they'll be dredging the lakes and beaches looking for ballot boxes, so you'd have to eat the body.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:18 / 13.07.04

EAT. HER.

flufeemunk effluvia

00:44 / 14.07.04

Mulch chippers are very efficent for reducing human bodies into unintelligible biological matter.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:18 / 14.07.04

Geez people, you are missing the point. It is a Republican. And one that SLEEPS!

Obviously it's time to knock her out, get her to Mass., and have her married to a woman.

Then the other Republicans will have to burn her at the stake.

It's all so simple.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:10 / 14.07.04

Surely for body disposal in Florida aligators would seem both practical and traditional.

Just tell her that you're deeply impressed with Bush's rather brave pre-beastiality stance and everytime she tries to deny it agree with her knowingly and give her a conspiratorial wink.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:11 / 14.07.04

Get a bunch of chilis. Fry mushrooms- fried mushrooms'll make ANYTHING taste good. Bung in some parsley- fuck, go to town, man!!! Oh, and coriander. You MUST have coriander. (That part's important).

Find some local death metal teens to take the bones away for you- I'm sure they'll find SOMETHING to do with them. They'll probably even show you respect with that weird fingers thing they do. They may even call you "necro". A good thing, apparently.

10:24 / 14.07.04

Yeah, until some paladin kicks down your door and gets all vorpal sword on your ass... Oop, hang on. Too much Baldur's Gate, sorry.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:55 / 14.07.04

Nobody really uses "necro" in that context do they?

Tryphena Absent

13:26 / 14.07.04

Only really cool people.

15:10 / 14.07.04

Grant,
Thanks for the inspiration!
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15:33 / 14.07.04

Only really cool people.

'Precisely,' he says, as he wipes the tears from his secret fatbeard.

09:35 / 30.07.04

... Has she arrived yet? Or when does she? And has a decision been made?

17:19 / 30.07.04

Oh, she's been and gone. Got an apartment rather quickly, as it turns out. Hope remains for a social dinner or something, but likelihood of that dwindles as we approach November. I did run into her in the driveway once, but it was uneventful. (She thinks my baby is cute, though, so points for that.)

On the other hand, the Dade County Republican party (a wee bit south of here) just got in a little trouble today for issuing a pamphlet telling Republican voters in the August primary (also voting for congress) to use absentee ballots rather than the new South Florida touchscreen voting machines.

18:56 / 02.08.04

(She thinks my baby is cute, though, so points for that.)

Oh, sure, that's what she wants you to think. But you should have heard what she said about your baby once she was back in the hive with her GOP cronies. I bet it was nothing but contempt and loathing for your baby.

Damn it, Grant, you know how these "people" work!!!

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