I swear, November 5th might as well be a national holiday for people like me—the post-election detox day. The day all those godforsaken political signs finally vanish from every patch of grass, median, and intersection. You know the ones. They multiply like gremlins after midnight. Suddenly, your peaceful drive to work looks like a kindergarten art project made of cheap corrugated plastic and lies. Then—just like that—November 5th hits, and poof! The world starts to look normal again. Birds sing. The air smells fresher. Civilization feels slightly less doomed.

Politics, in theory, is supposed to be about leadership, progress, and making the world a better place. In practice, it’s more like a televised food fight where everyone’s covered in ketchup and calling each other fascists. You’ve got one group screaming, another group screaming louder, and everyone pretending they’re the only adults in the room. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to survive the endless flood of attack ads that treat voters like they’re auditioning for a bad reality show.

I hate how people lose their humanity the second you mention politics. Suddenly your nice coworker Janet turns into a rage-fueled Facebook warrior, firing off paragraphs like she’s saving the world from ignorance one status update at a time. Thanksgiving dinner? Forget it. Uncle Bob’s gonna bring up taxes again, and your mom’s gonna “accidentally” pour herself a third glass of wine just to get through it.

Politics doesn’t bring people together; it rips them apart and leaves the rest of us stuck in the middle wondering why grown adults are acting like toddlers fighting over who gets the red crayon. Here’s a fun fact —the American Psychological Association found that political discussions cause actual stress. Not metaphorical, not “ugh I’m annoyed,” but the cortisol-spiking kind. See? Science says it’s toxic.

I don’t care what “side” anyone’s on. Left, right, center, diagonal—doesn’t matter. The second someone starts talking about “what this country really needs,” I mentally pack my bags and move to a cave. Seriously, there’s research showing people are more divided now than they’ve been in decades. And all the yelling, signs, slogans, and hashtags don’t fix anything. They just make us all a little meaner and a lot more tired.

So yes, November 5th is my favorite day. The silence after the storm. The day when the attack ads finally stop telling me which neighbor is a corrupt monster and which one is the savior of the free world. The day when my mailbox no longer looks like a confetti cannon full of campaign mail exploded inside it. The day the world exhales.

Let the pundits scream into their microphones. Let the lawn signs rot in some warehouse. I’ll be sitting outside, coffee in hand, enjoying the peace. Because for a brief moment, before the next cycle begins, the world feels blissfully apolitical—and that’s the real American dream.