You Should Vote For Me

My fellow students, our teachers, lunch mothers, Suzy: welcome.


I am not here today to make idle promises. To feed into the corporate machine we've made of Warren G. Harding's student council elections, nor to appease our parents, and their mountainous expectations, under which we will crumble before the ripe age of ten. Least of all, I do not want to appease you-- to promise you superficial gains that, in the end, will further bend your will, cloud your minds, until you forget the dire circumstances under which you each arrive, and replace them with extra-long snack time, or perhaps a school fair. If Warren G. Harding elementary school is our Brave New World, and you are my Savages, I will not be your soma. But if you'd rather these simple ego-graftifications, you might as well cast your vote for Timmy Steckler now.
I see I've piqued your arousal, mentioning the competition by name, and circumventing the unwritten rules of our 4th grade elections. Perhaps you don't believe me. Perhaps you say to yourselves, "Hank's a concerned boy, but isn't he just making a bigger deal out of things than need be?" And I've heard all the criticism I can stomach, the constant allegations I mismanaged my campaign funds, stealing Nick Curran's lunch money to defray the Kinko's costs for election posters. Even if I had-- ask yourselves, truly ask-- does Nick deserve that money? He's just going to spend it on Lunchables pizzas after school anyway, and stand as he always does, leaning against the door-frame of the 7-11, drinking the tomato sauce out of the plastic packets, as he has done every day for four years now. It's not even funny, it's gotten weird. It was pretty much weird the second week in a row he started doing it. What was that, like kindergarten? He never touches the pepperoni, or the cheese, but sucks the paste through a plastic nozzle, until half of it's in his stomach, and the other half's all over his face. The hobos don't even ask him for money, they keep their distance. But they always ask my Dad for money, and Dad looks them square in the eyes and says: "Why don't you get a job?" Then he buys malt liquor and drinks to The Price is Right.
My friends, how often have you felt like that dessicated sauce pouch? Drained, body and mind, til you have nothing left to give our system, as the teachers roll you up and squeeze from the sides, eager to get the last of you. I tell you today, you are not alone. And today, we're drained. When we can't go on anymore, is it we who have failed the system, or has the system failed us? How much do you want? How much are you prepared to demand? What if I told you that you could have your cake and eat it too? On Cake Day, the weekly holiday I will demand we celebrate every Thursday. Or perhaps you're a bit more of a free spirit? Why not cut out physical education for the children who'd rather not participate? Not me, personally, but the pasty-looking ones. Jamie, you come to mind-- you can fingerpaint, or watch Ingmar Bergman movies, or whatever it is you do.
We are, in a way, a class of Suzies: intelligent, kind of pretty, and horribly burdened, paired up with dead-weight that will never let us succeed. Whatever it is that ties us down, be it a corrupt political model, or having Nick Curran as a boyfriend for some weird reason, even as you stare at us every day coming back from the snack bar with the same carton of chocolate milk and this look in your brown eyes that says "Save me from myself", we can overcome it.
Seriously, you know he eats paste, right? Straight out of the jar, Ms. Yee saw him last year. How could you date that? Or, be a subject to- a subj-- a part of a system like that. It's like, we're all eating paste, and we can't stop ourselves. And sitting in the sandbox at 4 PM, alone, singing Ciara songs to ourselves, which I swear he does. The system. The system does.
Stalin once said, "If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses, we will disarm it ourselves." We find ourselves in a similar situation, where the opposition from bored teachers and overbearing mothers overwhelms us. They have arms. We should have arms. Ideally, we would get their arms, and then they don't have any arms, and we have all of them. My Grandpa, a really historical person, told me that, and he had a lot of arms, in this box under his bed, until Mom told the police and now he has to wear this ankle thing so he can't leave the house.
I've already shared some of my plans, now I'd like to discuss my opponent's. Timmy Steckler, as I've mentioned, wants to organize a school wide fair. This sounds wonderful, but completely impractical; do you really want to spend all year looking forward to one day, six hours, of pony rides? And, who do you suppose will pay for these pony rides? Will Timmy Steckler appropriate school funds? Or will he steal the money from your lockers while you're in art period, like he probably does, and shoulder you with the budget? When you're sitting at Mr. Docker's studio tables, drawing hand turkeys, will you need to worry about whether or not your locker is open, sullied by Timmy's (probably unwashed) hands?
When I hear you gossiping in the lunch room, I hear the same thing time and time again: I don't want to give up my good little 4th grade life. I wish I could share your stubborn optimism, but I've been burdened with terrible knowledge. There will be other grades. There are more numbers than four. There's at least up to eleven, which is probably twice as much as four. And I know you've all heard the rumors of life beyond Warren G. Harding elementary school; some of you may even know those who have passed on before us. I tell you, what you have heard is true, my Dad confirmed it all, up until tenth grade when he quit school to work at Sizzler. After next year, there will be no more recess. There will be a shop class where you have to make spice racks every day while a man with no forehead yells at you. Do you really want to lose recess, or do you want to fight for your freedom? Vote for me, and I will write a law that says recess is a subject, and we get graded on it from now on, so Nick will look really stupid because he can't play kickball. I will sign it in crayon, and put it on a wall.
This will be the first of many laws; I have a whole book in the works. Several other ideas involve: model rockets, watching Star Wars in class, and setting things on fire if we don't like them. Also, my Grandpa can come in and talk to you all about this time he went to Asia, he said he was in Vietnam, and that the youth should know the real story about it before the Democrats start putting drugs in our water. His stories are really interesting, except that he usually falls asleep halfway through and starts screaming, because he's a narco...narcokleptomaniac, I think he calls it. It's on this piece of paper the parole board gave him, you should see it, I couldn't even spell it.
So, remember, a vote for me is a vote for freedom. More importantly, it's not a vote for Timmy Steckler. If you want, I can fill out the ballots for you, Dad said I should stuff the ballot-box. So today, you can remain in Timmy Steckler's slavery, or you can shed the yoke of oppression, and dump your stupid boyfriend-system that eats paste and watches Sliders episodes frame-by-frame. Ladies, gentlemen, Suzy: do the right thing.