The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea

copyright © 2012 by Robert L. Blau

Here we are again, 'twixt the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Unlike so many, who have to make this fateful, and sometimes terminal, decision on the spur of the moment, we get to revisit every four years. And at our leisure, yet. Aren't we lucky?

So I was thinking about which way I'd go, and decided to see which way the winds of opinion were blowing.

"Which are you going to vote for?" I asked a likely citizen on the street.

"Oh, Devil, no question," said the man. "I've been treading water in the Deep Blue Sea for 4 years now. Too deep. Too wet. Too sharky. Can't stand another minute of it."

"Ah, Mr. ... Alzheimer, isn't it?" He nodded in the affirmative. "Do you by any chance remember the previous 8 years we spent with the Devil? In hell? Unremitting torture?"

"Nope," said Mr. Alzheimer. "Don't remember a thing before this Deep Blue Sea. Can't imagine why anyone voted Deep Blue Sea."

"Does anyone remember the last Devil administration?" I asked.

"Sure do," answered a voice. It was Mr. Maroon.

"So, ... are you voting Deep Blue Sea?" I asked.

"No way!" replied Mr. Maroon. "I remember the 8 years in hell, but that was the Deep Blue Sea's fault. He explained it all."

"And he would be ...?" I queried.

"Oh, the Devil, of course," said Mr. Maroon. "He wouldn't lie to us."

"I have an idea," I ventured. "I was thinking of voting Nice Little Cottage with a Picket Fence. What does everyone think of that?'

"NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!" screamed everyone in unison. "Devil-ers hate Deep-Blue-Sea-ers, and Deep-Blue-Sea-ers hate Devil-ers, but everyone hates Nice-Little-Cottage-with-a-Picket-Fence-ers worse. Because that's a waste of votes! You have to vote either D or DBS. Otherwise, the wrong one wins! Everyone knows that, who knows anything about politics!"

Well, I guess I'd been told.

"Deep Blue Sea must be defeated!" said a new voice. Ah, it was Dr. Nonsequitur.

"Dr. Nonsequitur," I greeted him. "Weren't you a big DBS supporter last cycle?"

"Indeed, I was," said Dr. Nonsequitur. "But I have been very disappointed in the Deep Blue Sea. I expected it to be calm, shallow, shark-free, and dry. And it has been none of those things."

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so I said, "Ah." And then, "So you expect the Devil will be better, then?"

"Hell, no," said Dr. Nonsequitur. "The Devil will be worse."

"But, er, not much worse?"

"No, way worse," said Dr. Nonsequitur.

"Then why," I asked as gently as I could, "would you support the Devil?"

"Haven't you been listening?" snapped Dr. Nonsequitur. "The Deep Blue Sea has been a huge disappointment, and cannot but continue to be a huge disappointment, if re-elected."

"I still don't get it," I whined.

Dr. Nonsequitur gave me a slowest-kid-in-the class look and spoke accordingly. "We.must.allow.the.Devil.to.lay.waste.our.society. Then: (1) the.people.will.understand.how.bad.it. is.and. (2) the.Deep.Blue.Sea.will.have.to.reorganize.into.the.calm.shallow.shark-free.dry.party.we. expected.in.the.first.place."

"A destroy-the-village-to-save-it-strategy, eh?" I remarked.

"At last, you are beginning to understand," said Dr. Nonsequitur.

"So that would work the same way as the last time we were disappointed by DBS and voted D in? When we got those last 8 years in hell, followed by the current 4 of Deep Blue Sea that are so disappointing?"

"That would have worked, if they had done everything correctly," said Dr. Nonsequitur. "It's the head guy's fault. He screwed everything up."

"Or the time before that," I continued, "when 12 years of hell was followed by 8 of DBS."

"That would have worked, too," said Dr. Nonsequitur, "if they hadn't screwed up. But this time, it's bound to work."

"I'm sorry, Dr. N," I said, "but the Devil just keeps getting worse, and I don't see any sign of the Deep Blue Sea morphing into anything but more Deep Blue Sea. Seems to me, you either go with the lesser of the evils or try something entirely different, say Nice Little Cottage with a Picket Fence."

"Nice Little Cottage with a Picket Fence?" sneered Dr. Nonsequitur. "Now, that's just crazy."