COLUMN: Pro-wrestling is my basis for voting decisions
There may be those of you out there who discovered this last Tuesday was unlike most other Tuesdays. If you’re thinking this is because it was a special clearance day at Wal-Mart, you could very well be right. I was, however, referring to Tuesday being election day.
Yet, just being told that it’s election day may not clear things up with you still. I can relate, because when someone told me Tuesday was election day, I asked them which president’s birthday that was and whether he was prestigious enough that we get off of school. I was not in the dark too long. After some careful and in depth research (which I always manage to achieve), I found out that election day happens to be the day that you go out and vote.
Voting is an integral part of our beloved democratic system. I shouldn’t have to remind you that our government is made by, of, about, over and inside the people (I believe that’s a direct quote from the Constitution), and therefore, voting can have a tremendous influence on how our government runs. In fact, if you were to rate how powerful voting was in any field, its influence on our national and state elections would be somewhere in front of student government elections and the “Survivor” TV program. Of course, it only seems obvious that the two things that voting has more influence on than our regular government elections would be the polling of the audience on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and finally voting to see who has to tip the pizza guy.
When these facts came to my attention, I decided it would be foolish not to do my part and vote. I have already seen the benefits of my decision and find the more I am involved in voting, the less likely it is that I’ll end up having to tip the pizza guy. Along those same lines, I also figured it couldn’t hurt to give the national and state elections a shot with my vote.
So with no time to spare, I began the endless scavenger hunt to find my voting precinct – or voting district, or voting front line, or whatever the heck it’s called. Then, when I did get to the right one and was directed to a booth with my ballot, I was very disappointed to discover the booth was not actually a pinball machine, as I had first supposed. In fact, it was really just a place to do my voting.
After a couple of failed attempts to roll my marble as if it were in a pinball machine, I finally decided that I might as well vote. It was while I was voting that I soon came to a very sick conclusion: I didn’t know who the people were that were on the ballot.
I desperately scanned the ballot searching for a Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, or some kind of Oscar hopeful, but there wasn’t one recognizable celebrity to be found. What kind of voting was this? At the same time, not one candidate had even changed his or her name to make it sound like a pro-wrestler’s. You know, like “the Senate Majoritator” or “the Ultimate Filibuster” or even “the Jerry Springer-er.” Did they seriously expect me to vote for one of my own, regular, fellow
citizens?
That was not all. At the back of the ballot, they wanted me to vote for or against something blandly named “Initiative 1.” Why couldn’t it be more appropriately titled to please the masses? “Initiative 007” or “Initiative: Impossible!” quickly come to mind.
That moment I realized the voting world was finally ready for someone like me: Marty “the Under-The-Table-Bribe-Taker” Reeder. I knew I could light up our government unlike anyone else had before, and all it would take was a budget of about $100 million, endless merchandising rights, George Lucas and lots of car explosions. I knew I was the ultimate solution.
Alas, when I went to write myself in, I realized I didn’t know how to even spell my own pro-wrestler name (the obvious downside to having such an awesome, but long name). Sadly, without being able to write in my own name, I was at a loss of who I was supposed to vote for. I was getting desperate and nervous. Those old ladies who gave me the ballot were eyeing me suspiciously, wondering why I hadn’t finished voting yet. The mother holding her baby in one hand and her Oprah magazine in the other while waiting for an open booth started to look very intimidating. I came away from that booth a smarter man, a wiser man. I was smarter about politics. I was wiser about issues. But most importantly, I was grateful for the old guy in the booth next to me who foolishly forgot to cover his answers. Sometimes the old ways are still the best ways.
Marty Reeder is a senior majoring in English education. Comments can be sent to martr@cc.usu.edu