After Tuesday I could use a little levity or a stiff drink.

Levity is actually better because they say laughter is the best medicine.

That doesn’t mean this column is funny, it only means I think it’s funny because, as I’ve said before, I fancy myself a comedian but if I got on stage I would freeze like a possum in the middle of the road.

After Tuesday, however, I got to thinking about the Electoral College and what it is or isn’t.

Much to my disappointment the Electoral College is not a real college. There’s no ivy-covered walls or coeds sunning themselves in the back lawn of the dorms.

When I cut grass as a youngster in Murfreesboro, I could occasionally catch a glimpse of the coeds at what was then Chowan College doing just that. In fact, the mailman caught me sneaking a peek and suggested I concentrate on cutting the grass.

When I wasn’t cutting grass I was walking to and from elementary and middle school and cutting through the Chowan campus. I remember the girls catcalling me and saying I was just the cutest little boy. Women don’t say that anymore.

That there are no coeds at the Electoral College is a big enough letdown but when you learn there is no football team it becomes an even bigger letdown.

That means there can be no bowl bids, no academic probation for athletes caught cheating on classes a first-grader could pass and no cheerleaders.

Cheerleaders are a big part of college football and have probably now or then sunned themselves in the back lawns of the dorm. Being an adult now it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to sneak a peek because I would be issued a restraining order.

Without a football team there can really be no college because everyone knows athletics is the reason kids go to college, whether to play or drink themselves silly during homecoming weekend.

Because the Electoral College doesn’t have athletics, it’s a safe bet to say they don’t have academics and professors who have Van Dyke beards and wear cardigans while puffing on pipes.

I’ve never actually seen any of my professors wearing a Van Dyke beard or smoking a pipe because smoking wasn’t tolerated on my campus. I’m not so sure they would have allowed Van Dyke beards because that type of beard usually means one has communist sympathies or is plotting the overthrow of the dean’s office.

Because the Electoral College doesn’t have bearded professors wearing fuzzy sweaters means there are no textbooks to get the general public riled up over for being too liberal or too conservative.

You’ll have to go to Chapel Hill for that kind of stuff because universities and colleges shouldn’t be allowed to broaden the minds and horizons of our future leaders who might one day be voted for at the Electoral College.

The really shocking thing about dear old EC is since there are no textbooks there are no degree programs, even those degree programs taught by professors with Van Dyke beards and fuzzy sweaters that let you make up your own major.

If I had that option in college I would have majored in socks to become the foremost socks analyst in the world. Newspapers would call me during a major crash in the socks market and I would be on live with Christiane Amanpour discussing the meltdown in the socks market as it relates to global terrorism. “A well-socked militia being necessary to the comfort of the feet of a free state shall not be infringed,” would be my standard line.

The great thing about the Electoral College not being real is parents don’t have to sell their souls to the devil to pay for the kids to get a degree in the chemical makeup of foot powder, which would be a perfect minor for my socks major.

The sad thing about the Electoral College not being real, besides no coeds sunning themselves, is I bet the frat parties would be a blast because no one really knows why they’re going to this school other than to get a made-up major in socks and foot deodorant— Lance Martin