LAST EDITED ON 11-05-14 AT 03:44 PM (EST)

It's the morning after Election Day in the States, and I'd like to use this time to take a political stand on a hopefully-bipartisan issue which I'd like to think more than half the nation might consider not killing each other over.

Curb signs.

I hate them.

For those lucky enough to live in countries which don't have them, curb signs work like this:

1. Take an n-frame of sturdy wire. It'll typically be about two feet tall, maybe two and a half wide.
2. Jam the pointy ends into any available ground. Sometimes, this means lawns. Much more often, it represents roadsides in suburban neighborhoods, rural area road shoulders, the strip of grass which runs parallel to many sidewalks... basically, anywhere there's space.
3. Place a slip-on plastic sign over the upper portion of the n-frame. This will advertise your candidate of choice.
4. Never come back.

In the week before Election Day, hundreds of volunteers roam the state, all planting those signs. And after the voting ends -- those volunteers never bother to recover them. The signs remain long after more than half the candidates have departed. The signs can stick around for months -- or rather, portions do. Inevitably, as the weather gets colder, the plastic begins to fray and break. Eventually, it blows away -- leaving the frame, which has been spending its entire existence demonstrating the rusting process.

So here you have a two-foot high piece of thin metal which is coated in rust. and all its friends. Who are everywhere. What would possibly go wrong?

Well... certain areas are not particularly well-lit. Some signs are a little too close to walking areas. Others actually occupy them, as the volunteers look at the worn trails in grass and decide lots of people will see the signs there. And sometimes you aren't paying total attention to where you're going, or foot-sighting wasn't your strength to begin with, maybe you had to step around something in the half-dark because you weren't in the mood to step in and therefore you just stepped into a piece of metal which is just the right height to do some damage. Tripping? Why not? Slicing clothing and maybe the skin underneath? Sure! Did I mention the rust? I'm pretty sure I mentioned the rust. So you fell, your clothes are ruined, you're bleeding, and the wound is infested with rust.

(ETA: And that doesn't even include the times when a prior incident has pulled the sign half out of the ground and left one mostly-horizontal sharp end arcing for the sidewalk. Then you get the times when the whole thing was trampled down to weed-lurking, toe-catching invisibility...)

I'd love to see the statistics on that occurrence for the winter months in the States. I'm sure someone has sued the major political parties over their failure to clean up the garbage. Apparently not for enough, because those signs just keep on showing up, election season after election season. I don't think they've ever changed anyone's mind, not really. At best, they remind people that the vote is coming up and here's a name which they're likely not going to remember. All the signs do is take up space, look ugly, and wreak damage. Mostly that last. And no one ever collects them...

What does election season mean to me? Political gridlock. People hating each other more than usual. Blame placed everywhere except where it belongs. But mostly, bruising, shopping for replacement pieces, and at least one tetanus shot.

So to all of yesterday's winners, congratulations. For the losers, condolences.

Now come back and pick up your @#$%ing trash.