Don't Blame Me, I Didn't Vote for Him. By Francis Williams

Grog woke up early one Saturday morning, a long, long time ago. Or, it would have been a Saturday, but for the fact that the idea of days of the week had not yet been invented. Be this as it may, it was probably of no consequence because everyday was a Saturday for Grog.

That is, Grog wanted to be left alone to sleep as he did every morning. And on this morning, as on every other morning, Tuff, the leader of the tribe, wanted to go hunting. This would perhaps not have been so distasteful to Grog, were it not for the fact that Tuff wanted to hunt Armadillo, and that Tuff had used a sharp stick with which to poke Grog. Grog disliked Armadillo, and hated Tuff. Which was strange because everyone else liked Tuff and Armadillo, perhaps not in that order, but fewer people said bad things about Tuff than they did about Armadillo. At least not while Tuff could hear them.

Grog being the exception. Grog said many bad things about Tuff, almost as many bad things as he said about Armadillos.

"Tuff stupid, Armadillo stupid, Tuff eat armadillo get stupid, tribe get stupid, Tuff got to go!" That sort of thing.

As a point of interest here, Tuff is pronounced by rapidly exhaling breath between clenched teeth, coincidentally sounding like the sound made when expressing disgust. "TUFF." Grog often went about saying, "Tuff tuff." Perhaps the first political slogan?

But on this particular Saturday morning, and this is what made it a Saturday, Grog decided he would not hunt for Armadillos. Today was going to be election day.

"Hunt!" said Tuff.

"No hunt!" said Grog.

"Hunt!"

"No hunt!"

And so on, while the rest of the tribe looked on. And from the wide eyed expressions of the good tribes-people, it would seem that they were very interested in this debate, which was quite surprising because they were both really rather stupid, Tuff even more so. Anyone who would wake up Grog by poking him with a stick had to be stupid. To then go on to arguing with him proved that he was not smart enough to be so dumb.

A kind of impasse had been reached, the debate had not been resolved, both men stood toe to toe, face to face, glaring at each other. Perhaps because of this very fact, Grog realized that he did not need to be smarter than Tuff because he was bigger than Tuff. Although it could, with some justification be argued that antagonizing someone bigger than oneself is, in itself, not very bright, so perhaps Grog was smarter than Tuff.

But be that as it may, eventually Grog raised his club. Tuff moved back, but a little too slowly, Grog brought it down with considerable force, striking Tuff on the head, splitting his skull like a watermelon. He was stone dead before he hit the ground. Grog looked about, club raised. A few of the tribe made oof, oof, noises. Grog stared stonily at them.

Grog had been doing a lot of this lately, hitting people on the head, and as it seemed likely that he would go on doing it, the oof, oof noise ceased. Grog was elected to office unanimously, there being no other candidate.

"Hunt!" yelled Grog.

"Ugh, ugh" went the tribe in unison.

"No Armadillo!" said Grog.

"Yuck Armadillo" said someone in the crowd.

"Yuck Armadillo" said another, and Armadillo was not seen by the camp fire from then on. That is, until it became Saturday again.

And that is how political debate was once conducted. Haven't we come a long way since then?

-Francis Williams