River ate the Votes: By Pocket Dog

 

When Foley was a mortal pup, and you were at work, she would get on the computer and upload herself somewhere exotic and have a little adventure. 

Occasionally she would take me, but I am nervous under normal circumstances. Uploading me into a strange place turned my insides into water.  I know how to upload myself independently I but have no desire to implement my knowledge and travel.

River is a huge news junkie.   She is fascinated by the human condition and wants to immerse herself in all of their problems. When she heard about the controversy surrounding the presidential election, she told me she would love to see the counting process first hand. 

I had a rare moment when I wanted to appease my sister.  I dusted off my uploading skills. I waited till we were alone, and then I hopped on the computer and uploaded us to a counting room in Michigan.

We found a chaotic scene that frightened me. There were arguments between humans everywhere. Some votes were allowed, and others were disallowed. To River, it was history unfolding before her eyes; after five minutes, I was ready to leave.

Usually, dogs would not have been let inside the counting room, but we are tiny, and the pole workers’ attention was drawn elsewhere. I got distracted watching a white man and a black woman come to blows regarding matching signatures.  I grew bored with the altercation and turned to ask River if she wanted to leave.   That is when I noticed my big little sister was no longer standing behind me.

I swore to myself and began looking for River. I found her behind one of the counting machines. She was chewing on something.  Iwas shocked to see she was eating ballots.

"My God, River, what are you doing?" I yipped.

"I missed lunch," River answered.  "I saw these and figured I could snack."

River likes to shred tissues and anything else made of paper. But she never ate important documents before. I had to find out whose votes she swallowed.

The only way I knew how to determine whose votes River had eaten was to have her burp in my face.  The first burp tasted like Wintergreen, and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking River had eaten all the green party’s vote, which did not affect the election.  

Her second burp smelled like simple vanilla.  “Those must be the Biden votes,” I said.   “I'm not worried.  He's far enough ahead that he won't miss a few ballots; at least you didn't eat any.

River burped, and I got hit with a wave of black market expired Cheetos. These were the Trump votes, which meant we were in trouble.

Trump had not only hired pole watchers but pole smellers who are trained to detect the Cheetoo like the scent of consumed Trump ballots. A skinny man with glasses and a thin red tie acting as a Trump pole sniffer pointed at River and yelled that she ate two hundred thousand Trump votes.  The number was a gross exaggeration.  River could barely finish off a roll of toilet paper.

The watchers looked like they wanted to rip River open and find their ballots. I told River to follow me. We moved sprightly for dogs pushing their senior years.  We dodged and wiggled under people's legs. It is hard to pick River up when she's going somewhere where she wants to be. You can imagine how easily she avoided her pursuers.   

Someone had left a computer unattended, and we both jumped on a chair then onto the computer. I furiously typed in the codes, and just before River was grabbed, we were uploaded back to our house.

The next morning the President was on Twitter complaining about dogs who have eaten millions of his votes. He hired poop watches to go into every neighborhood to collect new crap and search it for votes. “The dogs are so unfair to me,” the President said, “I have done more for dogs than any president with the exception of Rutherford B.  Hayes.”

Two days after River caused an election calamity, she pooped out three stools, each wrapped in a ballot. I mailed it to the Trump campaign.

Crap votes in the mail seem only fitting at this point.