End Game

November, and I haven't even started shopping for Christmas. The Halloween decorations are still in place and it's time to order the turkey. Plans for Veteran's Day proceed apace, but I can't help but feel that I have forgotten something.
Oh yeah. The Election.
The swirling eddy of all that makes America Great Again while also reminding us of just how broken we are. The last two years or more will be looked upon as one of the most tempestuous and ugly campaigns since ever. It would be nice to say that all this holiday, end of year, commemorative energy might somehow seep into this last week of email groping, Twitter-fed, fake tan pantsuit slog that the rest of the world has watched with terror and amusement. Don't  count on it.
Instead, we should ready ourselves for a few years of r and r: reconciliation and reconstruction. Millions of votes will be cast for Donald Trump. Millions of votes will be cast for Hillary Clinton. Millions will be disappointed. Not to mention those Gary Johnson fans who will be left scratching their collective heads, trying to understand how their guy could possibly have lost. Who will be able to handle the reality of that final tally, and who will be heading to the garage for their torches, pitchforks, and semiautomatic weapons. If the Democrats lose, you can bet there will be some strongly worded letters and op-ed pieces published.
I can remember going to bed on election night, cautiously optimistic that Al Gore, inventor of the Internet  and Global Warming, was going to eke out a victory over the drunken reprobate and draft dodger who led us into war. When I woke up, that drunken reprobate and draft dodger was President of the United States. My response? I wrote several years of nasty blog posts to let people know how outraged I was. But I never threatened armed insurrection.
And so we wait, with baited breath for this thing to wind down to its denouement. It feels a little like Colonel Kilgore's parting shot in Apocalypse Now: "Someday this war's gonna end." As will this election. Unless it goes into overtime.