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And now its election time, and its very exciting. Let me tell you about it.

Pictures of candidates are tied to little parachute falling from the sky. Some guys going down the street riding an elephant with a great big speaker dangling from its trunk. Three beauty queens are riding donkeys and singing theme songs.

Maybe this is the kind of small-town madness you see in those sci-fi movies you see at 2 oclock in the morning.

I have to do something. I pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1. Help me, please! I cry (I think I got the receiver wet, Im a very nervous guy). Politicians have swarmed right outside my window. Im breaking down, my voice barely above a whisper. Im all alone Im all alone Im afraid.

This kind of thing has been going on for three days now. Since then Ive seen gangs of candidates with bow ties and big grinning smiles pushing against my bedroom window. Theyre all hollering at me, but I can only hear a few of them. More more for us! (Damn Republicans). Less, less for them! (Damn Democrats).

Theres a candidate on the roof, peering down over the side. His face is all dirty. Your chimneys as clean as a whistle, he says cheerily. Hes holding a couple of dead crows by their feet. I did that vote for me.

Im out of my head. I stumble to the window and open it; a dozen guys fall backward into a big pile. I got a fever, I said. I need popsicles whos got popsicles?

I close the curtain and change out of my cowboy pajamas. In the kitchen theres a guy running for governor, a guy youve seen maybe a hundred times on the TV. Hes scrubbing out my sink with his hairpiece.

Right away they shoot out toward the driveway. A dozen young men in black suits and dark sunglasses run forward with popsicles.

Root beer, I command. Root beer and banana.

One candidate pushes through Root beer, he says triumphantly.

No banana? I ask.

I grab the root beer popsicle and close the window. The popsicle guy slinks back into the crowd. He trips over a troop of marching Cub Scouts.

I close the curtain and change out of my cowboy pajamas. In the kitchen theres a guy running for governor, a guy youve seen maybe a hundred times on the TV. Hes scrubbing out my sink with his hairpiece.

Can you believe it?

I need to get somewhere, anywhere, but theyre fighting on my porch, two guys dressed like Lewis and Clark have each other in a headlock. Theyre like carnie workers, one of thems got a bunch of plastic donkeys, the others carrying around stuffed elephants. A lady in sequins is out by the fence blowing on a kazoo and smashing cymbals together. Some girl in silver leotards is standing on her hands on the roof of my pickup. She lights a baton on fire and sticks it in her mouth.

Get outta here! Im getting bold. These guys are running down my property value.

Me! Me! Vote for me! Theres a guy jumping up and down on my garbage can. The lid shatters; hes standing waist deep in broken bags of funky cat litter. Some other guy knocks him over and rolls my garbage can into a ditch. Hes screaming at him. Why, you independent!

I bolted past them and ran for my car. Out on the road I saw rows of dancing girls with big leg kicks grizzly bears spinning saucers, clowns with guns that shot confetti. (I swear I saw the ghost of Lawrence Welk on my neighbors roof, but Im not sure I was sick after all.)

Bands of roving candidates were running up and down the street like trick-or-treaters at Halloween. I rolled my window down for air. A lady candidate dressed up like Uncle Sam was walking on stilts that lit up with flashing stars whenever they touched the ground. Hungry she muttered. So hungry. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Must have votes.

She stopped on the shoulder of the road and fell over, flat on her face. It looks like she cant move. (She finally gets picked up by a cowboy band playing Merle Haggard songs on the back of a flatbed truck.)

It was all very exciting, in a weird sort of way. But what would happen when the election was over? Where would all these candidates go?

I could only imagine the worst: Candidates standing forlornly at freeway off ramps, looking for a quarter and a crust of bread. Candidate soup kitchens (a couple of votes for a tuna fish sandwich, huh mister?). Candidates huddled around campfires along the beach, deep in the woods. Candidate hitchhikers. Candidate old folks homes?

My friend Delores told me one night she caught a candidate with wild, crazy eyes in his headlights, biting into a seagull. (She has since proposed setting up candidate-feeding stations.)

We need to create a host of imaginary government jobs to get these candidates off the street. We have to be on the lookout for signs of candidate addiction in our children.

Its election time again. Be vigilant.

Originally posted here:
An Old Dog's Tale: Wild visions fill the mind at election time - Chinook Observer