Changing Hearts and Losing My Mind, Volume 1

Years ago, I ran for City Council in my hometown. There was no primary challenger, so had I won the election, I would have represented roughly 35,000 constituents. [SPOILER ALERT] I lost. But before the last of the dimpled chads had even been scrutinized, thousands upon thousands of you began filling my inbox, begging me to recount my tales from the campaign trail.^{[citation needed]}

That din of adulation can no longer be ignored.

With an operating budget that would dwarf the average garage sale, my most effective commodity was shoe-leather, which is unfortunate because I am naturally very lazy. Plus, I don't particularly like people. One example why:

On a sunny Wednesday evening in October, I eked a hesitating path toward a beige-ish one-story on a dead-end street -- one more of a hundred houses I'd approached since five o'clock. An elaborate zigzag of a homemade redwood wheelchair ramp consumed the grassless front yard on its way to an unhinged aluminum screen door, and the roof over the front stoop sloped under the weight of a large dead tree limb that certainly hadn't dropped there recently. Standing there in the yard, propped against one corner of the ramp, a messy-looking fellow dragged deeply from a filterless cigarette, then stared daggers into me as he exhaled through his nose like an angry cartoon bull.

"Evenin'," I said, in my most condescending faux-folksy drawl.

Smoking Bull tugged his lips in over his dentureless gums, then spit heartily onto his own shoe. "Shit," he said, before scraping at the spot with the sole of his other foot. The shift in weight distribution wrecked his entire world, evidently, since he immediately flailed his arms and grabbed at the railing to keep from falling backward. By the time he'd re-situated and located my face again, I had a pretty good idea of just how drunk he was.

"I'm running for the City Council this year," I plowed on despite the fact that his entire head had acquired a slow sway, and one eyebrow seemed to be stuck in the 'surprised' position, "and I'd like to know if you've decided who you're going to vote for." (Insert thousand-watt insincere smile here.)

"She's a sonuvabitch...," Bull managed. Despite the odd gender confusion, I assumed he was talking about the incumbent, which was promising for me. "She voted for the... the smoking bans."

"That's true. Now if I'm elected, one of the things I'd like to--"

"She passed the smoking bans and we didn't get trash picked up like... like she promised." Bull drew his sleeve mightily across his nose, then gestured with his cigarette. At this point I could no longer determine if he knew I was still there. "Branches from... branches from the... sat out on the curb for a month."

"You mean after the big storm last summer?" I asked, but I might as well have invited the wheelchair ramp to prom. Bull -- more Wild Turkey than man -- was having a conversation to which no other human being had been invited.

"And I called... Mom called and all she... She didn't even return the call." After two or three attempts, Bull's cigarette found his lips. Drawing again, his limbs seemed to settle a bit around him as each toxin fought for dominance.

I sensed my opportunity, and pounced. "So then I guess I can count on your vote in November?" (And yes, the question feels just as desperate the thousandth time as it did the first.)

Bull seemed to notice me again. Then, somewhere in his mind, swizzled as it was with sour mash and nicotine, he dug deep and drew upon a faith more stalwart than any religion: party loyalty.

"I'm voting for her... same as I did the last two times," he told me. "She's the Democrat."

And that was that.