Today, friends, Mr. Peabody and I have set the Way Back Machine for the 1960’s, to travel back to the halcyon days of my childhood. Those carefree days when my friends and I would get together to play some team sports: football, kickball, global thermonuclear war…you know, the usual.

Two kids would immediately call out, “First captain, first choose!” and “Second captain, second choose!”, staking their claim as team captains, which afforded them the right to select their teammates. The rest of us would kind of fall in line, like contestants on “The Bachelor”, and anxiously wait for our names to be called, to join that captain’s team.

Naturally, I wanted to be among the first ones chosen, because it meant the team captain recognized what a valuable commodity I was for his team, what with my athletic prowess, and all. (ahem)

Instead, I stood there…and stood there…and stood there. Name after name was called, kid after kid was selected, and I began to get the strong impression, given my keen powers of observation and deduction, that neither captain actually wanted me on his team.

And apparently, neither did his teammates, who began to give directions on who to choose next: “Pick David!””Pick Sammy!””Pick Mrs. Ainsworth! I know she’s 83, pick her!”

Finally, when the Second Captain sadly realized he was completely out of options, he motioned to Yours Truly to come over to his team, looking at me like he wished he could have picked a disabled slug, instead.

What an incredibly proud moment that was for me, knowing I was not chosen for my ability, but simply because there was literally no other choice.

Which brings me to this year’s Presidential election.

 

 

 

(Note: The following opinions are my own. And maybe, a couple of other people’s.)

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen.

I keep hoping this turns out to be a well-planned, well-executed, elaborate and exceptionally cruel hoax. Or, perhaps, a long and terrifying nightmare from which I will awaken any minute, awash in the relief that it was nothing but a feverish dream.

I mean, these just can’t be the two leading candidates for President of the United States.

The polls – the altar at which all politicians worship – have spoken: these are the two least liked Presidential candidates in the history of modern polling.

Has it really sunk to this level? Is this truly what we wanted for our choice? What in the name of George Washington is the matter with us? President Hillary Clinton? President Donald Trump?

We…are…so…screwed.

So, on one side, we have…Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

One certainly can’t argue her experience; she’s been in politics for what, like, 80 years now? So she knows how things work (or, more appropriately, don’t work) in Washington.

And yet, with a resume as fully loaded as hers, she still needed help from the Democratic National Committee to secure the nomination, (See Wasserman Schultz, Debbie, emails) as Senator Bernie Sanders, and his followers, proved far more formidable an opponent than initially forecasted.

Know why? Cause we know Hillary so well, from years of observation. And many of us do not like what we see.

Put it another way: What does it say about her track record when a key element of her campaign is convincing more people to trust her?

Besides all that: who really wants to see him back in the White House, as First Bubba?

 

And then, there’s …(gag reflex)…Donnie.

Honestly, where do I even begin?

If that isn’t proof of how pitifully, woefully, historically lame the rest of the field was on the Republican side this year, I sincerely don’t know what is. Even when the Repubs had approximately 50 people running at one time, this guy was still the top choice.

Just think about that a minute.

You know, if he doesn’t win, he’s going to sue the United States for not electing him, you know that, right?

If you’re ready to be led by this bigoted, misogynistic, thin-skinned, vindictive, dozens-more-derogatory-adjectives megalomaniac, well…

I genuinely pity you. You have truly scraped the bottom of the barrel, and this is the disgusting dreck you’ve extracted. He’s on your hands.

 

So…there we are. Your Presidential candidates for 2016. To borrow a phrase from Larry David, curb your enthusiasm.

…um, yeah. More like, I dare you not to puke.

There are, of course, other choices, but our two-party system doesn’t exactly accommodate those interlopers. (Full disclosure: I have a cousin who threw his hat in the ring for President this year. The less said about that, the better, I think.)

And, just for the record, and for what it’s worth, if Bernie Sanders was the Democratic Presidential nominee, I’d cast a thousand votes for him, if it was allowed. I believe he has more integrity in his thumbnail than those other two in their whole bodies, combined.

You’re the team captain. Who ya gonna choose?

I guess that somewhat depends on what game you want to play.