By: JANA GREENE
I hate all the ugliness; we are seeing regarding politics right now. Is it just me, or does it seem like a whole preschool is running the world? Presidential candidates that can’t wait their turn to talk? Grown men calling names. It reminds me of the childhood games we used to play.
For instance, we Gen-ex’ers were warned about quicksand an inordinate amount, considering not one of us have ever seen quicksand in the wild.
What to do if you get stuck in quicksand was peer-reviewed, 3rd grade cannon. Because somebody’s uncle’s cousin got stuck in it for real for real and knew just what to do. All you need is a mule and a rope, and the ability to NOT panic (which disqualifies me immediately,) and who doesn’t have those lying around? Living in this political climate is fighting quicksand. We are all trying to stay still, so as not to upset the sucky mud. But got damn, it sure feels like we are going under. After getting the equivalent of a Batchelor’s Degree on the subject, one could rest easy, knowing as long as your mule was surefooted, you would be okay, except for the fact that…
THE FLOOR IS LAVA. I had one particular friend in second grade who claimed to have seen a real volcano in Baltimore (Land of Volcanos) and wanted to teach us how to escape certain vaporization using her mother’s white sofa. My friend (who said don’t worry, her mom wouldn’t mind) gave a quick and formal lecture before throwing every single cushion on the floor so that it would resemble the rock face of the volcano. To escape the liquid fire, we must all be so careful not to fall on the floor, er, lava. We were training in earnest before my friend’s mother came in, notices five barefoot little girls jumping across her good furniture, and did her best impression of Pele, Hawaiian Goddess of Fire. We sacrificed ourselves to the goddess by wading into the lava to fix her sacred volcano. But that brings us to the most dangerous, politic-resembling childhood game of all:
Dodgeball, baby. The premise of dodgeball, for you who were born after the 70’s, early 80’s, was to bodily injure your opponent by throwing a hard, red rubber ball at your thigh until it makes a BOINK! noise that reverberates thorough a tri-county area and knocks you clean off your feet. This is actually the closest I’ve ever come to being an athlete. Nobody in my whole school knew who I was, UNTIL dodgeball, and then I was a favorite literal target. Politicians are pretty much playing Dystopian Earth Dodgeball, which is when you don’t even need a physical ball to win. BOINK! from sea to shining sea, until nobody is standing, and everyone hates each other.
So, in conclusion, my opinion is that we are all in quicksand, and it’s sucking us down – lowest common denominator-style. Bit by bit, second by second, until we are at the end of the rope, up to our eyeballs in utter bullshit, unable to have a voice. And if ever the floor has ever been lava, it’s now. As far as the eye can see, Pele is still spewing. We teeter and totter on our little rocks, afraid falling in would amount to our demise, all while The Man makes it impossible to stand. To my spirit, the last several years has felt like I’m in a State Championship Dodgeball Tournament. Chaos. Lines being formed – not to include us, but to destroy us, one BOINK at a time. My “dodging” game is a mess, but the balls keep coming. THEY JUST KEEP COMING.
God bless us all, what a mess. People with the mental and emotional maturation of children are begging for our votes. Children teaching children, again, just like 3rd Grade.
We can do better. And we must.
Words by Jana Greene 
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