It’s election time once again in Ireland. Voting will take place this month for both the local authorities and the European Parliament elections. And some of the political parties have already begun canvassing door to door. You’ve got all the usual suspects: Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Green Party, Labour, People Before Profit, and the Social Democrats. But there are also a few new parties on the political scene in recent months – some a little stranger than others.
There was a knock on my door the other day. When I opened it, I was surprised to find a small buck-toothed peasant from a distant village in the Bavarian Mountains standing there before me. He introduced himself as Mr Gunther Dummkopf and informed me that he was a local candidate standing for election on behalf of the Torch & Pitchfork Party.
I’m a curious man by nature. And I like to keep an open mind when it comes to politics. So I asked Gunther what he plans to do if he’s elected to office in June.
“I plan to lead a violent mob on the long march to Castle Frankenstein so we can finally kill the hideous monster hiding up there in the old laboratory,” he said.
“Well, that’s all very well and good,” I replied, “but what about the libraries?”
Now to be fair to Gunther, he agreed with me that literacy rates amongst young adults were declining at an alarming rate. And he promised to look into the issue further once Doctor Victor Frankenstein PHD was brought to justice for his ungodly crimes against humanity.
But he also spent the next fifteen minutes shouting, “Kill the monster, kill the monster, kill it with fire,” over and over and over again. So there’s that.
Truthfully, I don’t know who I’m going to vote for this month. But I propose that we simply divest ourselves of any responsibility in the matter and get rid of the ballot boxes altogether.
Then we can force each party candidate to take part in a series of drinking game tournaments to determine which of them will actually take office. Although now that I think about it, the Stinking Drunk Beer Pong Party may have somewhat of an advantage in that particular scenario.
Why don’t we just settle the whole thing over a few rounds of Rock Paper Scissors?
