Well, I'm sorry, and I still cannot remember it.

 

This went on for over a week and then it finally dawned on me. Hemingway was right. No matter how dark it might look the Sun Also Rises.

 

It was suppertime and my wife and I were just beginning our evening repast. It was a relaxing time of celebrating the day with some delectable home cooking. Grace had been said, and I had just picked up my fork to attack the scrupulous meal when I noticed it. At first, I could not believe what I was hearing.

 

For months now (or has it been years, I cannot remember), every time we sit down to eat the telephone rang. There for a while it did not even wait for us to sit down to eat it just rang. All the calls were political and most of them were pre-recorded calls. I hate pre-recorded calls. I do not like talking to someone who is not there. If some politician wants to call me, just call me. Do not record a call and then play it back, because I can tell the difference.

 

I just wonder how dumb these politicians think we are? Do they think we really cannot tell between a live person on the other end of the line and a pre-recorded message? On second thought, they do not elect themselves.

 

At the time, I did not know if my wife had understood that the phone was not ringing or not, so I put my fork down and said to her, "Do you hear that?"

 

She stopped eating, listened very intently and then said, "Hear what?"

 

"Don't you hear that?"

 

"Either, you're dafter than usual tonight or there is some buzzing in your head," she said rather sarcastically.

 

"No, that's not it." I said, "don't you hear that?"

 

By this time, I knew she did not understand what I meant. So I had to explain it to her.

 

"Listen, the phone is not ringing."

 

Then she got it. "Oh, now I don't hear it."

 

For the rest of the evening we enjoyed our own private episode of Silence of the Phones. Do not let this out but we even made a wager as to when the phone would ring and who would be calling. If the President-elect calls, I win. I hope it is not a pre-recorded call.

 

The Silence of the Phones meant that the presidential election had ended, finally. As they say, all good things must come to an end. I guess that also goes with bad things. I know one thing; I am going to miss good old Joe the plumber.

 

Now that the elections are over I have to deal with post election blues, or PEB for short, and there is nothing short about an election cycle.

 

For instance, what am I going to do to keep my blood pressure up?

 

For the past two years, the news has been 24/7 covering this "historical" political race. Every four years we have the "most important election of our lifetime." I guess lifetimes are not as long as they used to be. They covered everything no matter how small it might seem on the surface. Every time a politician hiccupped, and politicians do that a lot, there was a camera to record it for posterity. I have no idea what posterity is ever going to do with all of these videos. I’m thinking eBay.

 

The debates... oh, the debates, how they got my blood running through my veins. You know the old saying, "Wherever two or three politicians are gathered, there my blood pressure goes up." Actually, we should not call them debates out of deep respect for those high school debate teams who know what they are talking about and actually win a debate.

 

The political debate is more like a "high level, everybody knows you're lying, shouting match." At times, I did not know if I was watching a political debate or a WWE event. I think Hulk Hogan would make an awesome president.

 

One politician kept saying, "I feel your pain." I could never figure out what he was talking about because at the time I was feeling no pain. Of course, after hearing it a million times it did become painful.

 

My grandfather was right when he said, "Ain't nothing perfect." And yet there is something within me that says perfection should be our aim in life. However, the crumbling society around us betrays this idea of perfection. It is enough to give anybody a real case of the blues.

 

I only found one place where perfection still rules. I discovered it in the Bible. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17 KJV).

 

When I look around me, I get a real case of the blues. However, when I look up things begin to look brighter.