Hi, my name is Elle. I live in Sydney. Sometimes it’s daytime but usually it’s dark. We have TV but I only watch TV on my laptop. It’s a special show where you watch people count and the numbers come up on the screen, so you can play along. Sometimes I eat Cheetos. Vodka is nice.

There is an angry old man in the story. He is orange and he tells lies because he can’t see the numbers like I can. One time he said he is the winner of all the numbers and we laughed. Another old man said he thinks he will actually be the winner. I think so too. He seems nice.

The nice old man has a friend called Kamala, and if he wins then SHE wins too. I love that part of the story. The nice man understands things like “virus” and “crisis” and “wear a fucking mask”. He has a nice mask and he smiles a lot which is different to the orange man.

There is a man on the TV called Kornacki. He is in charge of the numbers. Sometimes the people on there ask him questions and make him do math right there on the screen. He’s really smart so he can; I could not. There is a place called Pennsylvania we all get excited about.

At first the orange man was winning in Pennsylvania. But lots of numbers were inside envelopes. When numbers are inside envelopes it is very hard for some people to understand that they are still numbers, same as all the rest. Those people are angry like the orange man.

They also yell and what they say is “stop the count”. They do not know many long words, like “hypocrisy”. I know that one because I saw some this week. Anyway, they yell and yell, but all the people keep counting and they know that envelopes do not mean a number is not important.

Lots of people watch the show with the numbers. If you change the channel you will see another version. But sometimes the numbers are different. That makes the orange man and his people VERY angry. They yell more. They think that people care about them which is kind of funny.

It’s important to have different versions of the numbers because otherwise we would all still be sane, and if we were sane we might stop watching. If we stopped watching we might do things like “work” or “adult” or “five loads of watching”. I don’t like to do those things now.

Sometimes the people on the TV run out of things to say so they talk about what the numbers MIGHT be. There are lots of outcomes. It’s funny because to me it really seems like the nice man with the smile and the mask has the most numbers. But I’m not as clever as the TV people.

Also when it gets really boring the people on TV find extra people to put on the TV and they talk about numbers from a time called “2016”. Sometimes I get angry so I make myself a vodka. Did you know vodka tastes nice with strawberries if you run out of lime and soda? It is good.

Then some special music comes on so you know important numbers are coming. The man or the lady comes on and tells you yes it’s true, special final numbers are coming soon. They are always coming soon so we don’t need to worry. We just have to watch and make our vodkas quickly.

There is also a special comedy version of the numbers show. They like the orange man there and are very angry at the nice man with the smile because he wears a mask and so it's his fault that there is a terrible disease in American that has killed 230,000 people.

They are very scared of something called "socialism". That's how you know it's a comedy, because socialism is not even available in America. I know this because I read a book once about it called "Animal Farm", and there are no talking pigs in America.

I digress.

Isn't it funny how the comedy show about the numbers has nothing to do what's actually happening today? It's so good at that. They must be really smart to write such distracting material.

I wonder how the nice man is doing. It's definitely not his fault the orange man is dumb.

Quick! The special music is on! A nice man is telling us about the special numbers. There are six really special numbers now. It's funny because these numbers seem a lot like the numbers that were there last time the music came on, but I'm probably not paying enough attention.

That usually means I might need some Cheetos and to make sure there is still some vodka in the freezer. If you have vodka then the story gets more exciting and sometimes the numbers are so amazing that you even cry a little bit. I can't explain why anymore, I just do.

Other times there are very significant numbers and I try to feel the emotions that go with those numbers except for some reason my feelings don't match up with the numbers anymore, which is kind of weird. So then I definitely need to make another strawberry vodka for my emotions.

The people on the TV like to talk about something called "hypotheticals". It's a lot like spending a huge amount of time on something that may or may not happen rather than wait and see if it does happen. When they do that I get confused because I think maybe the nice man won.

I'd be happy if he won but I'd also be really really sad if I didn't SEE the numbers say he won. Because I've been watching these special numbers for months now.

You see, some of the numbers weren't real numbers at all. And that is a big part of the show.

Some of the numbers were also "hypotheticals". People call other people and say "Hello, do you like the orange man or the smiley man?". And then all those people would add up who said what and tell the TV people. The only problem is that they usually didn't do a very good job.

They did some really dumb things, like forget the fact that people who like the orange man don't really trust people who phone and say "Do you like the orange man?". They hang up. Also they think that Latino voters are a homogeneous block, and everybody knows that's not true.

It's not even the first time there were fake numbers. There was a time called "2016" where the "hypothetical" numbers were different from the special numbers and we were all shocked and very sad because we weren't warned that the angry orange man was actually very important.

We thought that this time the people who phoned everyone and asked which man they like best would have been super careful to statistically weigh their results to account for things like conservative Latino under-represention and the fact orange man friends say "Goodbye".

So lots of us are angry about the fake numbers, even though we did say maybe they were fake this whole time. It still feels like they tricked us. But they have to make the show with the special numbers interesting, and accuracy can be terribly boring. I don’t like being bored.

I like watching the special numbers come in, or being told the special numbers are coming in. Both times it has the same music which is part of the trick of the show. You don’t know if the game has changed for real or not. It is exciting. I don’t know why though.

The angry orange man does not like watching the numbers come in. They make him very angry. I think maybe he is wearing sweatpants too, and I reckon he has Cheetos. He yells at the TV even more than me. He’s so angry he even got some lawyers and told a judge to stop the counting.

The judge said haha, sure. And the angry orange man said no really, stop the fraud. And the judge said “C’mon dude I may be a Bush-appointed federal judge but I am not insane. Also you’re annoying and we’re actually kind of relieved you’re losing.”

It’s truly a new story.

The angry orange man has a friend who looks like a turtle. The turtle man is very quiet, because his special numbers added up. If he said the orange man’s numbers are “phoney”, then maybe his numbers are phoney too. So even he does not stick up for his friend. Poor orange man.

Kidding! We do not really like the orange angry man. The people who like him are angry too. They need lots of flags with his name on it and signs saying “Live free or die!”, and “Q”.

Q is another sort of story, except the people who tell it do not know it is a story.

It’s an even wilder story than the numbers story. Did you know that the nice smiley man and Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton sell children in cupboards on Wayfair in order to drink their blood? Neither did I, but that’s because it’s a story and also Tom Hanks is usually fairly busy.

But it’s sad because the angry orange man’s friends all think the story is real and that the orange man is the saviour of all the children. Also he will save them from evil things like “multiculturalism” and “decent coffee”. They are very frightened people who need more vodka.

I would share my vodka, except that I need it for my emotions about their emotions.

Also the TV man said there will or might or probably would be results from Pennsylvania today which is also tonight here in Australia. So I’d need a toast to the nice smiley man and Kamala.

So I need to be ready. It is very important we are all ready for the special music and the special numbers that will mean we will all finally feel the special feelings that come when the angry orange man is finally defeated. It will be in red, white and blue numbers on the TV.

Definitely not it in yellow. Numbers in yellow mean the TV people do not know or are pretending not to know or really actually do not know.

Yellow and orange are bad colours. Red, white, blue are good colours except maybe red because sometimes that means the orange man has won.

Part of the reason why we do not know for sure yet whether the nice man won is because of something called the “electoral college”.

Even though we can all see the nice smiley man has lots more votes than the angry orange man, we still just can’t say for sure what is the outcome.

It would be far too easy to just say “most people like the nice smiley man”. Don’t be silly!

And do you know why? It is because the orange man’s friends need a lot more help to say they like the angry orange man best. They need a system that makes their voices louder.

This is because many years ago, the ancestors of the orange man’s friends believed they had the right to own other humans.

Yes. Own another human.

Thankfully that part has ended, although some of those types of people still exist and think their voices matter most.

Only the funny thing is, without the electoral college, their voices wouldn’t matter much at all.

Friends of the nice smiley man in California and Oregon find this frustrating and so do I. I like rural places too, but mainly because I like goats and fresh peaches, not racists.

Speaking of peaches, I believe the nice man just won 37 more votes in Georgia. We’re not quite sure and we’re standing by, but if it’s true we’ll definitely tell you it’s likely true and add it to the tally maybe in an hour. Or maybe tomorrow.

You’ve got to stay alert.

And by alert I mean maybe just a little bit savvy. You know I don’t like to be cynical. But sometimes I think when the TV people say “stay tuned, more in shortly” I think maybe they mean “we have no fucking clue yet but please don’t stop watching”.

It’s a bit like they benefit.

But how could anyone benefit from millions of people watching the numbers show?

Did you know the Very Special Office Chair is perfect for working at home?

Neither did I but we all need one now.

I wonder if the people counting have ergonomically comfortable chairs.

Wait, the TV lady just said any minute now. And I believe that because I’ve watched many minutes and all of them were because at any minute the nice smiley man was on the verge of winning the game he already won.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Let’s watch Pennsylvania.

At any moment now we could know for sure what we’re rationally deduced for some days now.

I say some days because I don’t know how many. Because “days” is kind of arbitrary, if you think about it. Even more so when you stop thinking about it.

Sunrise, sunset.

While we’re here it is a really good time for the TV people to talk about “working-class turnout” and “down ballot votes”. Especially in Allegheny County.

I am very glad the networks understand how soothing it is to hear the miniature attached to historically significant events.

Sometimes the man called Kornacki is allowed to sleep. Mostly though he is prodded with an electric current so he wakes up and says he thinks maybe he’s quite sure that Biden definitely will almost certainly win in Pennsylvania. But not in writing.

It is very reassuring.

Also there is maybe possibly going to be an event where the nice smiley man comes out and says hi I beat the orange angry man for real.

It is nice to know that when this happens, the right lighting will be available. It is being set up.

We could not hope for more certainty.

Now that we understand how mail-in voting works, and how most of it says hi I choose the nice smiley man, it is tremendously comforting to know that our new favourite state—Pennsylvania—comes down to “provisional votes”.

Especially in Allegheny County. Because, voting.

All of us feel safe in knowing that we will definitely sometime definitely soon know today or maybe tomorrow the outcome of this counting. It is absurd to think otherwise. Especially when it comes to Pittsburg.

But the angry orange man is still angry. Poor orange man.

Kidding!

He likes TV even more than I do. Sometimes he even calls the TV people and tells him things he thinks. But today nobody has heard from him.

He is so sad he built a wall around his house. Except it’s not his house, he’s just a tenant and his landlord is all of America.

And what a perfect tweet to end upon.

ORANGE MAN BAD and needs to hire a U-Haul. It’s time to go... Donald. You’re fired!

Congratulations Joe Biden, Mr President Elect

Thank you all once again for bearing with me.

WE DID IT