I was sure I had won. How could I lose the election? I had all the best words. My campaign posters for homeroom student council representative used NEON posterboard. That sort of next-level campaigning always pays off.
Yet, when the votes were tabulated, I came up short. It did not take an analyst like Steve Kornacki in tobacco khakis to confirm I had lost by a narrow but irrefutable margin. In my small, rural high school where there was a suspicious correlation between grass being mowed in the morning dew to the lunchtime arrival of abundant mystery greens on the cafeteria steam table, there was no drama. Just facts.
“Win some, lose some,” I said with fake good humor when the vote count led morning announcements on the intercom.
I congratulated the winner, then walked home at the end of the day thinking I should’ve handed out 3 Musketeers bars like she did. Bribery is a powerful tool in any election, even if it involves the gross word “nougat.”
I had no Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz to tell everyone I had been cheated of my rightful victory. I didn’t even have a fat-headed failed philanderer named (snicker) Newt to defend me. I had no Barbie Press Secretary clutching a thick binder of empty paper and using her lie-hole to spew ever-more-desperate nonsense while wearing a tiny gold cross.
Worst of all, because I had a Spanish II test the next morning, I didn’t even have time to schedule a petulant presser in the parking lot of the local Four Seasons (florist and taxidermy outpost).
What to do except be gracious in defeat? Because I was 16, not 2, for heaven’s sake and I didn’t want other 16-year-old’s to remember me as the sore loser who refused to accept reality. “What a baby!” they would say. We ought to have a giant baby balloon made with her in a diaper and send it around the world!”
Interestingly, Donald Trump and I have now lost the same number of elections. Think of that. OK, don’t think of that because now I must tell you two years later I did win senior class co-president and that might lead you to think Don Jr. is right: Daddy will be baaaack. And now you are spiraling into depression and it’s all my fault. First Covid killed the Dove ice cream minis and now this. Is there no end to our nation’s suffering?
It will take a while but eventually Trump will move on, possibly to accept his friend and “Survivor” creator Mark Burnett’s offer of a new TV series. While I was only out a few bucks for that fancy posterboard, Trump has a $450 million loan coming due next year and even his besties at Deutsche Bank are ignoring his calls like he was a single mom who lost both her jobs to Covid. Whoa. That’s gotta sting.
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Celia Rivenbark is leaving Facebook for Parler where my free speech will not be suppressed. Nah. I’m just messing with you. Those people are idiots.