Looking Forward To The End

by Brendan Smith
Weirs Times Editor

I write this column a couple of days before the big election.
I am looking forward to all of this craziness to be over.
Over the past week my worry has increased tenfold and I am hoping that once this election is said and done, that I will be feeling a bit more at ease.
The fear has been at its worst each day as I drive home from work. I try to calm myself by listening to soothing music on the radio, but that doesn’t help to ease my mind for what I know awaits me as I pull into my driveway.
There have been other elections in the past that have had me concerned, but this year is by far has been the most awful I have ever experienced.
Yesterday was my worst nightmare come true.
Not one or two, or even five or six, but twelve, yes twelve, an even dozen, oversized, extra glossy political mailers were stuffed inside the tiny 8×4 inch metal mailbox I have attached to my house.
My wife, Kim, says the mailbox is cute, and on most days it is. But on this day, it was far from cute. Its tiny lid propped open gasping for breath; the ancient screws that had held it in its comfortable place for decades, quivering from the weight. Pictures of Jeanne Shaheen, Governor Sununu, Matt Mowers and the rest of the candidates, staring and glaring at me as I made my way from my car towards the once now unsightly mailbox which was being asked to carry more proportionate weight than even the strongest human could ever endure.
At first, I wanted to just walk by the mass of mangled faces, some smiling, others scowling, depending on what the message was being portrayed on the mailer.
But I knew I could not let the poor mailbox suffer any longer. And what about the other pieces of mail? The bills and letters and birthday cards that, on any other day, would have been sitting happily awaiting my arrival, but were now buried deep inside under the insipid weight of the messages from these people seeking political office.
It was not fair for the other mail to suffer just because it was delivered on such a tragic day. There might even be a magazine trapped in their as well, at first happy to deliver me the monthly articles that I had chosen myself to partake of, but was now feeling very uncomfortable with its pages in uncomfortably close contact with the phony smile of Kamala Harris.
I approached the mailbox, planted my feet firmly against my porch steps for leverage, and slowly pulled the mass of mailers out so as not to bring harm to the innocent mailbox or letters underneath.
Lugging the load inside I dropped them all on our granite kitchen counter. I thought I heard a crack from the weight, but was relieved to find it was only the sound of my arthritic shoulder when the load had let loose.
As is my usual course of action after bringing political mailers into the house, I picked them up again and then went to throw them immediately into the trash bin.
I pressed the foot pedal to open the lid of the bin, my arms once again becoming heavy from the weight, only to notice that the bin was full, mostly from what I thought at the time was a record number of political mailers that had haunted me the day before. I never imagined that even more would arrive this day, it did not seem humanely possible.
I placed the mailers on the counter again, and then slowly lifted the heavy garbage bag from the bin. There were at least two days’ worth of smiling and scowling candidates in there that I had forgotten about.
As I lifted the bag, the weight was too much and the bottom of the bag burst open and spread the faces of President Trump, Joe Biden, Shaheen, Messner, Mowers, Pappas and a slew of local candidates all over the kitchen floor.
It would be a long evening of cleaning up the mess.
Now I sit here and write about my adventures in dealing with this onslaught of political mailers. But I really can’t be angry at anyone but myself over all of this. It is my own fault.
I could have thrown them all in the large recycling bin in the cellar, like a good citizen concerned for the environment, but that is only collected every other week and I wanted the faces of these creatures out of my house as soon as possible.
It is also my fault that I am registered as an Independent. If I had simply chosen to commit to one political party, the tragic load of these political mailers would possibly have been less and my life a little easier during election season.
There is still one day to go before the election, and I am looking forward to the end of this nonsense.
Now that I am nearing 65, I need space in the mailbox for the Medicare mailers.

Hear the audio version of this and other columns at BrendanTSmith.com.