This article was sent to us by an Iraqi voting machine that took part in the monumental election
You couldn’t leave well enough alone could you? Things were fine over here, simple as could be. The humans had one candidate, and my job was as easy as a Tikriti whore. I spent my days sipping scorpion smoothies with the other two voting machines, Ralph and Machmoud, just enjoying the 109º swelter. We had a union, pensions, great repair plans– we had everything.
Then America gets bombed and pissed, and all of a sudden the whole country is on fire. When the dust settled a few days ago there were hoards of new voting machines all over Iraq. They were sleek and shiny, and willing to work for way less than we were getting paid. To top it all off, they started calling us “antiquated,” and “gay.” Next the voters started coming, index finger ink dripping on my gears, voting for this Muhammed of the Independent Party of the Prohpet or that Mohammed of the Nationalist Party of the Marsh Arabs, screaming about freedom and their lack of running water. Sure, forty of them got killed on their way to the polls, but that didn’t make my job any easier. In my day there was one candidate and one candidate only. His name was Saddam, and he was the bomb!
They say that by the time of the next election I’ll be too old to count votes. I’m not even sure if anyone knows when the next election will be. The thing is, I lost all of my retirement money in the Iraqi stock market in the late nineties, so I’ve got nothing to live off of. But they say I’m too slow, and that there’s no room for me in a democracy. Well you know what I say to that? I say there’s no room for a democracy in me, so I’m moving to North Korea where they respect their elders and vote for one human at a time. And America, don’t even think about messing with them. Old Kim Jong’s got a few tricks up his khaki windbreaker sleeve.
