Voting with me feet
Its Election Day everywhere, and I am heartily sick of political advertising. On the plus side, its chased me out into the shop. We dont watch a lot of live…
Its Election Day everywhere, and I am heartily sick of political advertising. On the plus side, its chased me out into the shop.
We dont watch a lot of live broadcast TV, preferring to record and watch later without commercials, but we always watch both the local and national news live each night. For the past three months, the political ads have been relentless. And relentlessly offensive. Not much you can do about that other than wait past the first Tuesday in November. Then theyre all gone and the return of relentlessly offensive prescription drug ads will be a welcome relief.
All that isnt a problem when Im trying to work, since I dont watch TV during the day. I listen to the radio, but its satellite radio with no commercials of any kind, much less insipid political spots. But the latest trend in political advertising is to have moronic robots calling your house so you can hear the moronic recorded message of whatever moronic candidate has paid for that currently popular invade-your-privacy-whether-you-like-it-or-not advertising ploy.
For the last two days the calls have been incessant. I got more than 30 yesterday. As I write this at about 10:00 in the morning, the phone has already rung seven times. My plans today were to continue with an editing project thats up against deadline, but I simply cant work with the phone constantly ringing. Nor am I one of those people who can simply turn off the phone or ignore it. One ring breaks my concentration.
So Im shuffling my work schedule. First, Im going to walk down to my polling place and vote, and then Im voting with my feet and walking out to the shop till the polls close. I have a phone out there, too, but I rarely hear it ring. And when Im in the shop Im usually so immersed in what Im doing that I have no problem shutting that phone off.
Dont bother calling me today. I wont be answering.
Till next time,
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.