I’m such a sucker.

For free coffee, sudoku, the McDonald’s dollar menu and even the gas that is one-cent cheaper than at the station on my side of the street.

But never in my 22 years as a cheap consumer have I ever seen anything as cheap as what I saw in the newspaper yesterday morning.

Technician had a story about the Senate Elections Commission voting to include part-time students.

My first thought was, “Puke. I’d rather watch two midgets try to hurdle over a barbed-wire fence.” Who needs another “Senate this, Senate that” debacle?

I mean really, haven’t we heard enough of, well, all of it? I hesitate to even write the things they argue about because I’m afraid of A) boring my readers and losing their interest and B) falling asleep halfway through so the rest of my column is just “q” 700 times.

But, because I’m a sucker for morbid curiosity (damn right I look at a car wreck — I’ll stop and get out if I need to, so back off) as well as a glutton for punishment, I read the story. I’ll spare you the details.

What you need to know is they are having an “emergency meeting” tonight to discuss The Pirate Captain’s veto (Whil, I think you should run again) of the bill about part-time students voting and running for office.

Wow — emergency meeting. This must mean life or death. Hmmm, let’s see, that conflicts with American Idol so I’ll get the updated version Friday.

But, as usual I got to thinking — what exactly constitutes as an “emergency?” Sounds pretty urgent. Must be pretty important. Maybe Erich Fabricius got a new dog. Or Tracy Hutcherson figured out wisdom teeth serve no real purpose.

You know, now that I think about it, I’ve only seen the Senate — at least this year — hold one other emergency meeting. And you know what? It was about the same thing they are talking about tonight.

Sometimes, I just want to rip off their arms and beat them over the head with them.

I’m not mad at all of them — and I’ll bet some senators actually wouldn’t mind doing something similar (I hear blunt objects are becoming popular) — but it only takes a few shepherds to herd a lot of cattle and shepherds among the Senate members are the ones that feel threatened.

Some emergency. Not like them leaving wouldn’t be a service to the student body in itself. Whooda thunk it?

OK, before I go any further, I just realized I became a sucker for Student Government. But only, let me emphasize only with caps, bold, underlined and in italics — ONLY — because stupid people do stupid things and stupidity drives me bananas.

I just need to point something out real quick. If 7,182 students are part-time students, then those students must have other lives outside of school (shocking, I know.) Most of them probably put the majority of their energy into whatever else they are doing and wouldn’t vote in the election anyway.

Aside from that, when was the last time we had as many votes in ANY student body election as last year? Total? That’s including the 23,000 or whatever it is other full-time students. Just over 7,000 voted in last year’s election (which must be some kind of record) and that’s only because someone that actually thinks like a student ran for office and happened to have some fun while doing it.

Besides, if trying to get a full-time waitress who takes a few night classes from time to time to vote has become the focus of Student Government, then I’d be really impressed. Because they must have every ounce of confidence all the other students will be voting.

But something about that doesn’t sit quite right with me. I don’t think it’s the waitress the Senate is concerned about.

The only reason the Senate is giving this any kind of attention is because some of them may not be able to participate in Student Government from here on out.

Say it ain’t so!

What a blessing. Imagine, full-time students supporting full-time students for the needs of full-time students. Wow — there’s a concept. If a part-time student or someone in lifelong education has all this extra time to devote to Student Government and won’t even take a 12-hour class load, then why in the don’t they go out into the real world and run for a real governing position?

Ahh, because they know they can win here with only their posses vote and no contenders.

Sounds pretty selfish to me.

I’m going to go find two midgets and a barbed-wire fence now.

Let Jason know what you think at [email protected]