The fine print

When I registered to vote, I don’t recall seeing a clause that said, “Most of the time, political hopefuls will ignore your existence, but every few years you will be seen and treated as a propaganda-absorbing lab rat, upon whom dozens and dozens of increasingly asinine and laugh-inducing paid poltical advertisements will be foisted via cable-enabled televisions. By registering to vote, you agree to marvel every few years at how bad the ads are this year, and how so-and-so went negative first, and how so-and-so is just awful for allowing that ad on the air, and you will read endless stories about candidates’ ads instead of candidates’ platforms, and your cynicism about everything in life will fester and grow to the point where you feel that one more ad mentioning a candidate’s family or his desire to give abortion pills to schoolchildren might cause your brain to explode and sputter out your ears like so many heated cans of creamed corn.”

Then again, I never read the fine print on anything.