Friday, July 11, 2008

What are friends for?

So, my best friend called me yesterday and says, "Hey, do you think you can vote for me this year?"
Being an immigrant from England, she is unable to take place in an election, which is like the perfect exemption if you ask me. Exotic and insouciant. I know that once you move to a different country, you are supposed to be interested in the new and different things it has to offer and be adaptable and all that, but I don't think I'd want to be involved in American politics if I wasn't from this country. Much like heroin, it makes you feel dirty and wrong, but I suppose it can be quite addicting.

"Okaaay," I replied warily, "Who do you want me to vote for?" There was a pause, and then she chirped, "John McCain!" Except I heard this in a loud, cavernous echo: THE DEVIL HIMSELF.
(Oh hi there, did I just alienate some readers?)

I was speechless. "John "Waterboarding" McCain?!" I asked incredulously. There was a tense pause on the other side of the phone, and then I received an icy reply, "You're not seriously gonna vote for Obama, are you?"

Oh dear. I had no idea my best friend of 13 YEARS was a crazy right wing republican. How did I not catch on to this? How could I have been so blind? Honestly, I'm exaggerating a little, cause I'm really not that into politics. I am whats known as an "Optimist", a rapidly decreasing breed of people, and in order to stay that way I prefer to remain as minimally educated as necessary about politics. I have my morals and beliefs and hold them to a very high standard (which apparently makes me an anarchist libertarian?) but thats about as far as I go. I plan on voting for Obama because of many reasons I prefer not to go into on my blog, you can ask me if you really care that much!!

The rest of the afternoon, we shot email after email off to eachother, highlighting our presidential candidate's pluses and issues, pointing out negative facts about the others beliefs, and sending mean edited pictures to eachother.

Hers:


Mine:



Later on that evening I received a call from her. "Truce?" She offered. I begrudgingly accepted. Politics may be evil, but it cant ruin a 13 year relationship. However, bring up shoes, chocolate, men, dancing or alcohol...they've come much, much closer in the past ;)

9 comments:

Sandee said...

Neither one are worth much if you ask me. We are left with the lesser of two evils. Just my take. Have a great weekend. :)

JD at I Do Things said...

Heh. Funny post. I'm like you, an optimist. I can't always give intelligent reasons why I like one candidate over the other, but John McCain is so clearly George W. Bush 2.0 (and the devil), that this one is a no-brainer.

I'm glad this didn't get in the way of your friendship.

JD at I Do Things

Deb Rox said...

Luckily, you can vote and she can't!

BTW, you had me at "insouciant." Lovely. Also, you didn't use the word "whimsical." Nasty word.

Athena said...

Sandee - everyone is entitled to their own opinion! No worries!

JD - Optimists unite! And there is nothing like politics to keep a friendship interesting ;)

Deb - I made sure to rub that in her face a few thousand times :)

Anonymous said...

Oh goodness, don't let something like this separate two friends! After all, there's barely any discernible difference between Obama and McCain.

Meg said...

I agree that politics can't destroy a 13 year relationship. Also that chocolate or men COULD!

Great post!

Anonymous said...

LOL, your blog makes me laugh! Scrolled down, reading more posts, and cracked up at your post about the ice skating lessons!
BTW...I'm voting for Obama!

danielle said...

This is funny. This is the exact-ish scenario that played out with my oldest pal and a certain matter of scientific debate (doesn't that sound like we wear monocles?). We both felt heatedly about the particular matter but in exact opposite directions. We were trying to be all diplomatic and matter of fact but oh, the burn smouldered!!!

Fortunately we both had the wherewithal to finally come out and call a truce and laugh over the ego involved. Our opinions are so precious to us, but do they matter? Well, yes, of course, but this grappling with the abstract should not ruin the concrete; alienating a tried and true friend in the interest of pushing our own agendas (even when we are totally, totally right and they are 100% wrong).

Descartes said...

I used to watch the Sunday Morning Talk Shows and feel a good deal of righteous indignation at how badly they talked everyone-now I tend to think they didn't talk badly enough