Frank Doodel had waited for this moment his entire life. From the very moment he became self-aware, four years old, he knew he wanted to be a politician. It began when he saw the movie Air Force I, starring Harrison Ford as the president. Frank assumed that was a normal depiction of American politics. He was entranced.
What followed was a life in pursuit of this goal. Every second of every day Frank weighed how his every choice would further his mission for political power. He insisted his family purchase labrador retrievers instead of schnauzers. He began taking public transit to his private school rather than the family limo. Finally, he began to host open forums on the playground so that he and his fellow kindergarteners could discuss different strategies to improve the school’s issues.
When Frank was eleven, he began to identify as a protestant. While he remained a devout participant at his family’s mosque, in public, he embraced a WASP identity. He began bleaching his hair and wearing suits to all occasions. During a trip to the city, Frank used his hard-earned allowance to purchase a Rolex. He also demanded a circumcision.
Frank became a devout fan of the television series House of Cards. Despite the fact that the show had very little with Air Force I and possible hostile takeovers of said airplane, he purchased much of the memorabilia and memorized many lines of dialogue from his favorite character, Frank Underwood. However, Frank quickly abandoned this love when sympathy for Kevin Spacey became an untenable position.
In high school, Frank participated on the mock trial and model UN teams. On both teams, he was shortly after joining. Frank had assumed the clubs would have had a much more Air Force I style of culture rather than “boring nerd work,” as Frank put it.
Frank dutifully avoided chasing a social life that would lead him into making improper life decisions. In fact, Frank was so good, he managed to not be invited to a single party his entire high school career. He even missed his own graduation party.
In college, Frank majored in political science, of course. However, finding the curriculum underwhelming, Frank switched to psychology. Finding the same problem again, Frank switched finally to pre-law. Then Frank switched back to political science and his father paid for him to be allowed to graduate. After seven short years, Frank entered the workforce.
Frank got a job as an assistant to a campaign manager through his father. For the first time, Frank had a solid connection to the political lifestyle. Everyone around him was political. What surprised him most was how different everybody looked. It seemed like the visual trappings that he had always assumed were the most important part of political success were perhaps not as important? Or perhaps even unimportant?
One day, Frank woke up and looked at himself in the mirror. He did this every day, to eradicate any imperfections, but this time he looked deeper than skin deep. Frank looked at himself and wondered if he was actually any good at politics. He definitely was not good at his job. He had been put in charge of the mailroom, which was supposed to be an easy station since nobody used mail anymore, but even then, he had found himself floundering. The mail had somehow piled up and he had completely forgotten to hand it out.
In fact, he had almost tanked the campaign because he hadn’t delivered some important documents. His boss had described him as the “The stupidest drone I have ever met.” Then he’d gone on to describe Frank in even more detail, but Frank had tuned him out.
So, Frank looked at himself and came to a bit of an identity crisis: he’d spent so much time making sure he’d looked like a politician he’d forgotten to learn how to be one. Then Frank thought about how much time it would take to learn how to be a politician.
Frank decided it was too late to pivot now.
Frank continued to muddle his way through entry level politics, repeating a never-ending cycle of entering a campaign management through his father’s connections, and then being fired for his own inadequacy.
Eventually, Frank reached the age of thirty. He had been waiting for this moment his entire, nondescript, bland life. Immediately, Frank’s father bought him the most expensive campaign agency available. They chose the perfect battleground state, ingratiated Frank with local communities, and told him his new beliefs and moral code.
Frank was winning in the polls from the jump. At least that’s what his staff told him, Frank wasn’t entirely sure which state he was running in after all. He’d never been, and he didn’t intend to move there anytime soon. Wherever it was.
His first debate was held over zoom. His opponent, a sixty-year-old veteran running on a grassroots campaign. He came at Frank hard, but luckily Frank had prepared for this event. At every jab the man could throw at Frank, Frank countered with the perfect riposte his team could think up. At every single point, his team directed him in what to say and do. At certain parts, Frank would have absolutely no idea what was going on.
Once, Frank accidentally repeated one of his talking points from a different section in another part of the debate. The moderator had asked him to repeat himself, but Frank cleverly ignored him.
Frank led in the polls, his popularity was high, and he had not a single blemish on his record. He won the election. It was actually closer than people expected, but Frank’s father poured a couple more million into the ballot counting, and the victory was sealed.
That brings us to the first described moment. The moment Frank’s life had been leading to. Sitting in a senate seat.
It wasn’t as comfortable as Frank thought it’d be. In fact, it was rather uncomfortable. Frank pushed past that dark thought. Surely, excitement awaited him.
“When do we get to go on Air Force I?” Frank asked an elderly woman sitting next to him. Either she couldn’t hear him, or she chose to ignore him. Frank turned back towards the floor, spotting movement out of the corner of his eye.
A man reached the stand in the middle of the hall. He was going to begin a speech, Frank realized. Frank readied himself for the rock and roll lifestyle of politics that he was about to witness unfold before his very eyes.
“Point of parliamentary procedure,” the man began on the senate floor. Frank leaned forward in his seat.
“I want you to know that I’m a Florida boy. My family came to Florida from Denmark in 1829. For those of you from the northeast, so many people…” Frank leaned back in his seat in abject horror. Politics were just as boring as everything else. Where was the intrigue? The violence? Where was Harrison Ford? Politics wasn’t what Frank thought it would be. Frank debated attempting a career pivot for the second time in his life. Once more, he figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
Frank went on to serve twenty-five years in the public office, serving in both the house and the senate, as well as a brief stint as the secretary of state.
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