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Naturally, the thing to do when one drops out of high school at 16 and enrolls in city college is to immediately run for student body president. I did exactly this. It turns out all you need to win is that logic and a 1970 Volkswagen Bug (with that ridiculous Autostick shifter).
I can’t say the students of my commuter college were all that excited or cognizant they even had a student government. If there was a "debate," I can’t remember it. Position documents read something like, “When I was young, I voted for Monte. Be young, vote Monte.” I won’t say our ambitions lacked, but I will say no one was willing to listen to them.
Apparently the secret to winning these elections was to have the best picture in the display case outside the polling area. The previous year's president told me this so matter-of-factly that I could only assume it was true.The problem was, I was 16 and didn’t have a single decent picture of me. Coincidentally, a close friend, David, showed me some photos from a particularly strange adventure we’d had a few nights before.
Somewhere in our driving around town with friend Adam (who gets this cheap photo credit), between getting life lessons from a sushi chef and molesting statuary outside a bank, we came across a no parking sign that had been “left” in the middle of the street. Naturally, we pulled off the road, and posed with the Bug and the sign. Then we went on our merry way.
This photo was the result.
Imagine how bad the other candidates photos had to be for me to win.
Everyone who congratulated me on winning said “Nice VW.” That's politics.
