Voting Mishap Results in Decapitation of Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate

hild, like Florida needed another election blunder!

Hot on the heels of Thursday's admission that 100,000 votes in Broward county went uncounted until Wednesday, it was revealed Friday that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride was actually killed by a voting booth.

McBride, a lawyer and political novice who ran unsuccessfully against Governor Jeb Bush, was voting in his home county when a reportedly faulty ballot machine handle swung back and beheaded the hopeful Democrat. It was not revealed if the unlucky son of a bitch was voting for himself or his opponent.

"We would have mentioned it sooner," said election official Marjoe Ramsey, "but we figured everyone had bad enough news to deal with, what with the Republicans winning everything."

"And…?" said an older woman standing nearby, possibly Ramsey's mother.

Ramsey continued, "And we thought we'd get hollered at."

The dead Democrat fuck-up comes at a particularly bad time for Florida, still the butt of everyone's jokes after being the focus of the 2000 catastrophe that left George W. Bush the "winner" of that election. Florida's problems with computer-based ballots early this year proved voting errors were still possible, and the loss of 100,000 uncounted votes in Broward county was yet another screw-up that resulted in somebody's ass getting fired and leaving Florida unreliable to do in the future what 49 other states (and the District of Columbia) seem to have no problem with.

"Bill McBride was a good Democrat, and probably a good person," said McBride's primary opponent and possible drag queen Janet Reno. "It's a shame this had to happen to him. But if you're not tough enough for the voting booth, maybe you're not tough enough for Florida. I can't believe he ran against me! I could've beaten Jeb Bush. 'Jeb Bush.' Pussy silver spoon-chewing vote-hiding queerbait."

Jeb Bush, Florida governor and presidential brother, was told of the voting irregularities Friday and acted dismayed.

"Damn! Sorry to hear about that. I would have won anyway, you know." Bush shook his head and made a huffing noise. "I suppose now I know why I never got a concession phone call or nothing. Darn shame, folks. My condolences go out to his family, and to anyone else possibly killed voting, not to mention all the Jews and old folks whose votes and stuff got lost or misplaced. I guarantee all of these voting problems in Florida will be taken care of before I become president."

Plans for funeral arrangements for McBride are yet to be made, but expected to be carried out by next weekend. Currently Florida election officials are still searching polling places for the head. If found, please mail it to the Florida Electoral College or take it directly to Governor Jeb Bush.

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You see, there were these teeny tiny people who lived in a doll Tamara bought at the mall and though they were quite peaceful and kind, when they came out to introduce themselves she thought they were fleas and sprayed the whole lot of them with an industrial de-lousing agent that really was chemically harsh and probably not something pregnant women should get within 50 yards of.

The people, who were called Unids, by the way, didn't die from the spray but rather developed a thick tolerance for the stuff, like French people with sarcasm. As the old saying goes, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, but the part they left out is that it also gets you high as shit. When the Unids finally came down after a fantastic three days of psychedelic reverie and a full-body buzz, they no longer cared about uptight square concerns like whether the inside of the doll was a mess or if they had a contingency plan in place in case the vacuum cleaner came around again. They cared about one thing and one thing only: gettin' some more of that happy juice.

For a while, this was easy, since all they had to do was pop out of the doll when Tamara was around and wave their arms around. Before you could say "Louse in my house!" they were swimming in the good stuff like bennies from heaven. It was wild, I'm talking high on the hog like the '86 Mets. They'd call it the "Salad Days" if salad came with crack as a dressing option.

But the problem was, before too long, Tamara figured out that the Unids weren't fleas at all. Nor mites, nor any kind of vermin she'd ever seen before. After a few weeks the shock wore off and she started looking at the Unids a little closer, and that's when she realized that they were kind of cute. Sort of like tiny little wooden dolls with stylized, painted-on faces. Pretty happy-looking really. And once she'd figured that out, well, then there surely wasn't any reason to de-louse the poor little buggers, was there?

Big, big problem for the Unids. Their connection had dried up like an Arizona housewife hitting menopause. Their future wasn't so bright as to require the wearing of shades, but they wore them anyway, to hide their bloodshot, bugged-out eyes. The Unids were going cold turkey like a third grade class on a picnic field trip to the North Pole, and they liked it about as much as they liked Sarah McLaughlan. Which is to say, not at all.

Finally one day one of the Unids, who shall remain nameless since none of them ever had any names, so why should we start now? They didn't have telephones or fax machines or anything, so they hardly had use for names, "Hey you!" always did them fine and they hated the stuck-up little prick types of little tiny people like the Omits who insisted on everyone calling them by their absurdly long snooty full names, like Alexandarium Mananavicholious Tooterflute.

Anyway, one day one of the Unids figured out that the only way they were going to score again in this lifetime would be if they all put their heads together and came up with some really freakin' scary costumes. If they could manage to scare Tamara bad enough, she just might send some of that sweet, sweet de-lousing spray their way in a panic, and then my friends, the train would be made of gravy. That's what he said anyway, I'm not sure what the train thing supposed to mean, some kind of cultural slang thing that doesn't translate well probably.

So anyway, this is how the Unids honed their now-legendary costuming skills. First, they were dressed as fleas. Then, when Tamara got wise to that, it was skin mites. Then ticks, then moose fleas. I don't think there really is any such thing as "moose fleas," but Tamara didn't know that so I have to give them some points for creativity there. Before long, word got out that the Unids made some pretty wicked costumes, and they soon went into business for themselves and did well enough that they could buy their own delousing spray and they nodded off happily ever after.

A pretty heartwarming story, true. But if you ever get any of those little junkie pricks living in your beanbag chair, you might as well just throw the thing away, because it's just going to stink after that.

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Greetings, commune readers. Rok Finger here, typing greetings to you from beautiful Rumney, New Hampshire. Feel free to register your surprise, disgust, or firearms—whichever is appropriate. It's understandable that based on comments made previously in this column by both yours truly and myself, one might have reasonably expected these words to be coming at you from sunny Memphis, Tennessee. And I'm just skylarking about the sunny part. For as my more astute readers may have guessed—I never went to Tennessee at all.

I was saved from such an embarrassing misstep on my first-ever annual pilgrimage to Graceland by resident commune know-it-all Griswald Dreck, who informed me that the Graceland of Elvis Presley toilet overdose fame and the Graceland of Paul Simon dancing with Chevy Chase fame are not, in fact, the same place. Needless to say, this was news to Rokwell T. Finger, much like the fate of Old Yeller. Leave it to Griswald Dreck to puncture two balloons with one needle and a story about a glue factory.

According to Dreck, the Paul Simon album I was so eager to experience in real-life form was in fact originally titled Gracieland, a reference to the New Hampshire shrine built in memory of George Burns' late wife. But thanks to an irreputable typesetter with a financial interest in Elvis memorabilia, Simon's message was forever obfuscated.

Now Rok Finger is no fool, and he, meaning me, unwittingly lines the pockets of no man. Unless that man is running a chain letter scam. Rok Finger may not be a fool, but he's even less a fan of bad luck chain letter voodoo. Scary stuff. But thanks to Griswald Dreck, noble American, some Deep South huckster claimed one fewer victim this week. Dreck was even nice enough to take the then-useless plane ticket to Memphis off my hands for twenty dollars American. And before you could say late purchase ticket surcharge, I was on my way to New Hampshire.

In a word, readers, Gracieland is everything I could have hoped for, and did. There are truly angels in the architecture. And that line about the roly-poly little bat-faced girl? No longer an impenetrable mystery. Suffice it to say that George Burns' late wife was not an Amazonian supermodel. Far be it from Rok Finger to hold that against her, however, especially seeing as I have played the troll under the bridge in over 30 elementary school productions of The Brothers Grimm without need of expensive makeup effects or costuming.

Though I had secretly hoped to view the stuffed cadaver of Chevy Chase on this trip, I leave feeling fully satisfied and, for once in my oft-disappointing life, fully on the "inside" of an juicy morsel of popular culture. I haven't felt this hip since discovering the hidden soft drink advertisement in Donovan's hit song Mellow Yellow back in the 1960's.

And more importantly, as with any good vacation, I was able to completely forget about the outside world for a time. Not literally, mind you, I didn't buy a house or ask to start getting my mail here or anything asinine along those lines. But except for the time spent at the public library typing this column and a few calls home to check on Lee and Camembert that were apparently misrouted to the head trauma ward of a veterinary hospital, the last week has been about nothing but Rok Finger getting in touch with Rok Finger. Some would say that altogether too much Rok Finger-touching went on, and that is a distinct possibility, but the late night programming made available on motel TV was utterly beyond my control.

I return home a wiser Rok Finger, and one who now owns more George & Gracie refrigerator magnets than he knows what to do with. I hope Camembert likes magnets, because I've easily got all his birthdays and Christmases covered for the rest of his natural life.

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