February 06, 2004

We knew someone fucked up when election officials called an unprecedented all candidates’ meeting as soon as the polls closed at 7 PM. Men in red went around late in the afternoon telling all the candidates on the campaign trail not to miss the meeting. “Are we going to have a public execution?” I asked. “We considered it,” they said. We had to wait until the candidates gathered in one room to find out the details …

Apparently, somebody didn’t bothered to send ballots to the co-op students, so the votes cast could not be counted for another couple of days. Oops.

The candidates, eager to hear the results, were dumbstruck by the news, especially since the uncertainty left everyone unsure of how to act. “Oh man, we still have to be nice to each other for another week?” I asked.

People stormed out of the meeting to write angry appeals. “Why don’t we just hand this election over to Fashion ‘n Motion?” somebody demanded. In the concourse, there was trembling and lamentation (mixed with mad glee) especially after some of us realized that a new election may have to take place.

The elections were about to end disastrously, which was surprising considering that everything unfolded so well for me …

Flashback

09:00 am I checked my inbox to discover spam and a brief note from Lindsay Markle wishing me luck. Even though she is in Ireland right now, she has been incredibly thoughtful and supportive throughout the election period, and her note in the morning put a huge grin on my face.

11:30 am As soon as I entered the Science Building in I was bombarded by pamphlets. The same thing happened again once I entered the concourse. “Damn,” I thought to myself, “people are fucking annoying today!”

12:30 pm After putting up posters and handing in my financial information, I took over a table in the concourse. My goal for the day was not to be annoying, so I sat down.

12:40 pm Katie Tight came by and wished me luck — her style, hair, and clothes were all different and I barely recognized her. Only the eyes remained the same.

12:45 pm Melanie Paradis was exuberant as we shook hands. She just had lunch with her boy and her hands were cold. “First years are exuberant ‘cause they’re stupid,” Corwin said as he sat down next to me. “The fact that their spirit hasn’t been crushed is depressing.”

12:55 pm Trevor came by my election table and I immediately became confessional. “I’m more suckable than other people,” I said. He opened the newspaper and shouted out the poetry he read in the headlines:
AIDS! SQUIRRELS! BARS! FASTER!
POPE! ENTERTAINMENT! AIDS! AIDS! FASTER! FASTER!

01:15 pm It took less than half an hour for my campaign headquarters to become a hub of activity. Eight of us were sitting around the same table, conspiring merrily. Andrea and Trevor worked on a crossword puzzle. “You skipped one,” she said. “I skipped many,” he replied.

01:55 pm We were just informed that only seven proxies were claimed (a significant improvement from last year when 400 proxies were used and the fairness of the system was brought into question).

02:40 pm Sitting at the election table, Trevor told me that he’s taking his wifey to Thailand for 25 days. I felt insanely envious and immediately demanded he cut me up in little pieces and take me along in his suitcase.

02:46 pm Feeling bitter, I stole Trevor’s tea — he left it unattended to go buy tickets for Asia. It was lukewarm.

03:20 pm I ran into the Business building looking for conservatives, but I only found David Francois who is passionate about hating business. We were having an intense conversation about his MA program, when Dr. Moore walked by. Earlier in the week, Dr. Moore told his class that “English majors are loser with no friends,” as he deconstructed my posters.

03:50 pm Cricket showed up at the election headquarters. I haven’t seen her in ages so I managed to behave decently. She didn’t lose her sense of humour. “Damn Wiggy,” she said to her cat, “stop licking your ass and vote.”

05:00 pm I started feeling tired even though I haven’t done a damn thing the whole day. The only real work consisted of shaking hands and autographic posters. “I’m Tudor from Transylvania,” I wrote on Melanie Paradis’ poster. She was ecstatic.

05:01 pm “Fleet urine. Good answer, keep writing. Lies, all lies,” Zac said.

05:05 pm I ran into Heather and we rushed over to the business building so she could “smack down her vote.” On the way over, I waved my arms, talked, and made little sense. After she did some smacking, we wandered aimlessly through the business building until we ran into the man with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

06:31 pm The men in red, who were in charge of the election, told me about the special all-candidates meeting. Rumours start spreading like pestilence.

06:57 pm As the campaign period officially ended, I went to the bathroom to wash off the filth of 3,000 handshakes.

07:05 pm Oops! Co-op students never received their ballots so the election team was left with two uncomfortable options: either keep the the co-op students enfranchised or respect the rights of the candidates to have the ballots counted on time. Election laws would be broken regardless of the decision made.

07:30 pm Candidates and their teams rushed out of the meeting to write angry appeals. Alysia, whose name was spelt wrong on the ballot, now had reason to be even more furious. There was talk that the entire election may be nullified, in which case everybody would have to run again.

08:05 pm An emergency Board of Directors meeting was scheduled to begin in an hour. Anthony Piscitelli wanted the meeting to take place in camera, which is ironic considering that he ran on a platform of openness and transparency. To prepare for the meeting, everybody goes drinking.

08:45 pm Paul Tambeau finished preparing an appeal using the intricate and self-contradictory logic of the Students’ Union against itself. Essentially, the appeal argued that co-op students should be disenfranchised since their rights are not as clearly protected as the rights of the candidates. I added my signature to the list, partially to spite co-op students.

09:05 pm The emergency Board of Directors meeting is cancelled as everyone is waiting for a decision on Paul’s appeal. It didn’t take long for the appeal to collapse the tenuous logic of the election officials (some people’s right to vote is not too important). The counting began for the Presidential and the VP: University Affairs positions.

10:00 pm Trevor showed up at Wilf’s randomly and pleasantly, and he bought me beer and food as we talked for a while about pipes, infinite anuses, and jumping out of windows. At some point I licked his hands.

11:50 pm We went out for a smoke. I felt cold and tired so I didn’t take his cigarette. “Those girls are soulless,” he said about the women whose backs I wanted to autograph in the restaurant. “I looked into their eyes and I only saw emptiness,” he added. “Whose?” I asked.

11:55 pm Trevor bought me tea and we sat on the leather couches in the food court to recover from the cold. He’ll be gone at the end of April — people are moving on and I’m still here. I felt old and empty, and Trevor didn’t make me feel much better as he told me of how he writes intense postcards and then spills his semen on the words. But the tea was good.

12:30 am I went up to the Student Publications office and waited for the results with my favourite PIRGies.

3:02 am The results came and Anthony and Steve were both elected by a landslide. People clapped and weeped as I went back to the office and took over the leather couch. In my sleep I heard Greg being eloquent and logical, and to me he made perfect sense. Until he tried to wake me up.

8:40 am Angela walked into the office and suddenly it was day again. I still didn’t know how my election went, but I was vaguely satisfied about the previous day and night …