Sick to Your Stomach Over the Election? Read This

Deep breaths, people. Deep breaths!

An elephant and a donkey wrestling

Arriving with no trumpet blasts and not even one of the four horsemen; no blood gushing from kitchen faucets and no alien invasions - with no fanfare at all, as if it were any old ordinary autumn Tuesday, is Election Day 2024: the day Americans have been hearing about, arguing about, wondering about, and worrying about for, oh, about four years now. It's today. Finally.

We're all a little burned out on being told that this is the Most Crucial Election there's ever been. It doesn't help that the word "this" is doing a lot of work here: after all, this is now the third time we've been instructed that it's the Most Crucial Election there's ever been.

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump has reshaped American politics and culture in a way that I don't expect to go away in my lifetime.

Half the country thinks the other half is insane, supporting a leader who will bring down the very freedom and way of life that America once exemplified to the rest of the world.

And the rest of the country thinks the other half is insane, supporting a leader who will bring down the very freedom and way of life that America once exemplified to the rest of the world.

So yeah, it's probably going to be a nail-biter. If you're losing your mind over all this, as I am, just remember:

No matter who wins the presidential contest in 2024, your washer and dryer will still eat your nicest socks - but only one sock per pair.

Regardless of who prevails in this election for the nation's highest office, your kitchen counters will still get sticky again no more than 30 minutes after you've cleaned them.

Irrespective of which candidate pulls it off in this race for the American presidency, your haircut will still look great at the salon and absolutely terrible the moment you get home.

You will still drive off with a fancy water bottle or cup of coffee sitting there on the roof of the car.

It will continue to rain, and rain hard, solely because you didn't have room to throw in your umbrella that morning.

Your small child will still inform you, at 7:43 PM on a Sunday night, that they have a Rice Krispie model of the Sydney Opera House due the following morning.

The shoes that are 75% off will continue to be available only in sizes slightly too small and slightly too big for you.

Your TEMU order will still take so long to be delivered that you will have forgotten you placed it, and then when it does come, you will still be dismayed that you ever wanted this piece of crap in the first place.

It will still be a terrible idea to get bangs as a way of getting over a failed relationship - but people will still do it.

The existence and power of online influencers will still remain a mystery to everyone over 35.

You will still find yourself shaking your head in befuddlement and reiterating to an utterly uninterested audience of your loved ones, "Well, when I was a kid, we didn't have that."

Your colleagues will continue to microwave tuna in the break room's microwave.

Upon hearing the total cost of your order at a fast-food drive-through, you will continue to embarrass yourself by protesting pitifully, "$35? Really? For that?!"

The new baby in the family will still be far more enamored of the wrapping paper and ribbons from the first-birthday gift you get them than the gift itself - which was, let's just say, not cheap.

Retired men will still quiz their adult grandchildren on what kind of mileage to the gallon they're getting in their cars - and those adult children still won't have the slightest idea.

You will still accidentally leave one back window a couple inches down when you go through the car wash, causing a weird foamy stain to appear all over the backseat. This wet patch will mix with stray Cheerios and dog hair and begin to stink such that now the car has to be detailed inside, too. But you will still not realize this until later, and so will still have to make a second trip to the exact same place, where you could have bundled these services and saved money, had you known - or you could have just put the damn window up.

Alas, you will still do neither.

And it may be that you still believe your family and friends will be persecuted. Or it may be that you still believe your rights are being trampled on. It may be that you believe the country is being given away; it may be that you believe there is enough to go around.

But we don't know yet. So we're going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

Because regardless of who wins this election, bridge will still ice before road.