Just a push of a button yields ton of food, smidgen of sarcasm

The polls are closed and the sarcastic results are in.

About 30 citizens with sensibilities cynically similar to mine exercised their constitutional right to get my new anti-political button, which reads:

“Politicians – same jerks we hated in high school.”

Oh, don’t scold me. You know it’s true.

The catch (there’s always a catch, isn’t there?) was that you had to cough up some coin of the realm to the Second Harvest Inland Northwest food bank before we here at Newsroom Central would send you a button.

I knew putting a donation requirement on the button would cut down on the button requests.

That said, I am yodeling with joy to report that our food bank will be $330.58 richer thanks to you generous, button-buying wiseacres.

And based on the food bank’s ability to buy 6 pounds of food for every greenback that rolls in, this will yield nearly a ton of grub for the area’s hungry.

Who says being jaded can’t be a virtue?

I, too, struck gold on this. I nearly doubled over laughing at some of the political venting that came in.

Mark Corbin’s letter, for example.

“Given that all politicians are skilled liars who would willingly sell their sons into slavery and their daughters into prostitution for a vote,” wrote the Rathdrum resident, “we need a real choice.”

Corbin then drew a large square on his letter. In it he drew four ballot boxes to check.

Vote for one, he wrote:

Lying, slimy vermin, D.

Slimy, lying vermin, R.

Verminous slimy liar, I.

None of the above.

“Think of the immediate savings,” Corbin opined. “No salary for Sen. Gasbag or his extended family. And no $10 million studies of marmot flatulence.”

I’ve been in the business a long time. And that, my friends, is the first time that I can ever recall seeing the cute, furry marmot coupled to the word “flatulence.”

In her button-seeking letter, Faye McLeod attempted to answer a philosophical question I posed in my column.

Would you yank a fire alarm if you saw a politician spouting flames?

“It wouldn’t occur to me to call the fire department to report a politician on fire,” wrote the Spokane resident. “I just assume a pile of manure is subject to spontaneous combustion.”

Cowabunga!

Jim Gaboury, another North Idahoan, claims to have a deep psychological fear of politicians.

(Would that be called acrooknaphobia?)

“My classification is: used car dealers, hearing aid peddlers and politicians. Put them in a basket. Shake them up. And – voila! – no difference.”

Jim, I must disagree. Unlike politicians, used car dealers and hearing aid peddlers don’t kiss babies, can make an honest buck if they want and don’t always lie when their lips are moving.

“A man after my own heart!!!” declared Spokane’s Carol Schmedding.

“I am 55 years old – never voted,” she wrote. “As the late George Carlin said, ‘I don’t want to be responsible for the #^%$!! in office.’ ”

Carol. Carol. Carol.

This is where you and I part company.

I may be Johnny Smarty Pants, but I always make sure to vote.

And thank God for those promise-breaking, pork-barreling, forked-tongued #^%$!!. I need them. It’s called job security.

Speaking of which, my button offer did evoke a response from an actual politician. Steve Salvatori kicked off his e-mail by telling me he was “one of the weasels running for County Commissioner.”

Har. Point to Salvatori.

The Republican then went on tell me how much he loooooved my column and how he “looked forward every day to seeing who is in your sights… except when it’s me, even indirectly!”

Oh, this guy’s good.

According to Salvatori, who added some cutesy fun facts about weasels, he is different from all the other politicians I’ve met.

This, he said, is because (a) he’s never before run for an elected office, and (b) he never participated in student body government back in high school.

“On a semi-serious note,” he added, “I hope our paths cross some day, and that you are as entertaining in person as you are in the paper … .”

Gee, Steve. My head is spinning so that I hardly know how to respond.

Except that, well, my column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s been that way since about 1985.

So all that stuff about how much you enjoy my daily musings is a whole lot of marmot gas.

And as for your lack of political experience, well, all I can say is that you have wasted your life. Because if I had your virtuoso chops for slinging fertilizer, I’d at least by now be speaker of the freaking House!