After watching the last presidential debate, I’m now having recurring nightmares. These dreams have replicated themselves over the past decade. I vote for the candidate I think is best, then I NEVER get what I want! It’s reminiscent of a gaming device I see often in arcades. Quarters sit precipitously on the edge of a cliff, while a moving barrier rocks back and forth looking like it is going to push all the coins off into a bin below. As you stand there studying it, you think, “Only one more quarter, and I’ll make a tidy sum!”

The problem is, it’s an illusion. The machine is rigged, just like the ballot box I use each time. It’s uncanny, each election cycle, I get so peeved at the individual in office. It’s amazing, how is it that they win by wide margins but most of the time, I can’t find one person who will admit to casting a vote for them? After each political season, I enter a vast wasteland of lost souls. It’s reminiscent of being a Red Sox fan the 90 years before they won their first championship. The oft mentioned mantra was always, “Wait until next year!”

Humorist Will Rogers once opined about politics, “We have the best politicians money can buy!” Funny how the truth of that statement hasn’t changed at all in one hundred years. I wish politicians would wear NASCAR type jackets. You know the kind; patches by every sponsor rests prominently all over their chests. It would make it far easier to choose the right senator, congressman or presidential candidate if I could see who owns them. But then again, if I were to boycott all the companies that have bought our politicians, I might find my life horribly disrupted. I could be relegated to wearing just bamboo underwear and eating watercress and seaweed sandwiches. Corporate lobbyists in Washington are that active, and they own virtually everything and everyone.

I detest politicians that proclaim they’re earth friendly and then want me to buy a car the size of a roller skate. You see them jetting off to multiple summits in private jets and limousines while leaving a carbon footprint bigger than a spewing volcano. I actually heard one celebrity recently berate Americans that we should use no more than one square piece of toilet paper each time we clean our pumpkins. For me, this political correctness and celebrity advice sounds like a sorority house initiation. “Let’s see how many insipid things we can make them do before they realize just how stupid they really are!”

So how do we fight these political incursions in our life? The only way I know is to vote with our wallets. When a company whose product we use supports a candidate with the IQ of a fruit fly, stop buying their products. I may have to eat my hot dog without my favorite ketchup, or skip my favorite hotel chain when I travel, but one thing is sure, I’m not going to support politicians and their fawning media. I’ve played this arcade game before and unlike last time, I’m not doing it again! I believe this time, I’ll be holding my quarters.