As you may know, I have decided once again not to run for office.

It’s nothing against the office, mind you. This is largely due to my dislike of people I dislike.

Don’t get me wrong here. I like lots of people. Maybe even most people.

I just don’t like those I don’t like.

It drives my saintly wife nuts. She tells me I should like the people I don’t like, including some of my more annoying neighbors. That drives me nuts.

But if I lost my mind and ran for office and somehow got elected, I’d have to at least pretend to like or at least listen to people I’d just as soon tell to go fly a kite, or at least to stop bothering me and figure things out for themselves.

Them: “When are you going to fix my ditch? When are we going to get a swimming pool? Why are there potholes in my road? Why’s my mail late? Why are these meetings at night? Who do I see to make my commode stop running? Why do you kill puppies? Why do I have to pay taxes? Do you chlorinate the marsh to make sure my kids don’t get sick if they drink it? Is that thing an alligator? Can I pet it?”

Me: “When are you going to go back to Ohio?”

I am especially annoyed by those who move somewhere and then find out they don’t like it because, say, there’s too much traffic. Them, sounding like Fran Drescher: “Southerners never do anything on time. They would’ve already had 144 eight laned if I was still in New Jersey. Six months, tops. Bunch of rubes.”

Me: “I would like to note for the record were it not for the presence of so many of your fellow Northerners down here driving around, we wouldn’t need the extra lanes. But I won’t. I will, however, misquote the immortal Lewis Grizzard, ‘Delta is ready when you are.’” Nope. Nope. Nope. That would not play well in our day and age of 24-7 social media. There are copious amounts of bloggers out there, all full of beans and looking to catch somebody doing something they shouldn’t.

And that worries me.

I mean, you can’t even scratch something these days, even if it itches, without fear it’ll wind up being on some Facebook page somewhere.

“We have reports editor scratched himself at committee meeting! Women and children were present! Oh, the horror! Probably mismanagement of something!”

I tell you. I don’t know how elected officials can sleep at night, worrying about what somebody’s saying about them on social media. It’s like being in some kind of endless bossy nitpickity HOA when you don’t even live there.

That said, I can see a scenario were I might decide to give it a shot and get myself elected.

First thing I would do after the vote is declare the rest of city council (mayors included) to be extraneous and have those extraneous council members and mayors removed. Forcibly, if necessary.

Lest you doubt I could accomplish this, I have some large cousins up in the Upstate of South Carolina, and they’re all armed to their drawers. This because they’re still afraid President Obama is going to show up in Seneca and take their guns, and they aren’t going quietly. Now, where was I?

Bumped off is probably too strong a term, at least it would be if said ex-council members went quietly.

Banishment with glowing references seems more in order: “He was a great councilman and visionary public leader and accomplished many things (just ask him), but was made redundant by a coup. Probably well suited for a career as a director of first impressions in a real estate company.”

The upshot is we’ve already got too much government and too many people in it, and they all like to put up signs.

My plan, on the other hand, eliminates all elected officials besides me, not to mention all those signs.

But after my swearing in, by me, I’d get to work making my life better. After all, if it’s good for me, it’s good for you, and I’m breaking no new ground here. I suspect I wouldn’t be the first elected official hereabouts to operate under that philosophy.

One thing I’d do is outlaw dump trucks from noon to 11:59 a.m. daily, seven days a week. Why? I believe anybody who needs that much dirt in one trip is up to no good. They’re probably building another subdivision and we’ve already got way too many of those.

I do realize banning dump trucks might result in economic hardship for those who drive them, and we can’t have that. My solution is to put them to work putting all that dirt back where they got it, and similarly banned bulldozer drivers will be similarly employed putting all those trees back where they found them.