Yost Seeking Taylor Swift 8-Track Tapes

And I heard you moved on, from whispers on the street

A new notch in your belt, is all I'll ever be

And now I see, now I see, now I see

He was long gone when he met me

And I realize the joke is on me

Taylor Swift, "I Knew You Were Trouble," from the album Red.

Well, thank goodness the big election is finally behind us and everyone, both Democrats and Republicans, did a pretty good job of keeping the peace on Election Day – and especially on election night when the returns that came in put half the country in a very sour mood.

Also, thank goodness for the fact that the election worker people all over the country – including, of course, our very own Guilford County election's staff – had their act together, which meant that we didn't have a long drawn-out process after election night to decide who won.

There are always outliers of course, and it should come as no surprise that this year, once again, the black horse of the election family is Dade County and the State of Florida, which clearly still has no idea what they are doing when it comes to holding elections.

Dade County, who's slogan is "Dade County – we put the 'Duh' in Florida," was just one of the counties in Florida that had no idea what they were doing. I don't know if that's the official slogan adopted by the Dade County visitors bureau or whatever, but if it's not, it should be.

Here's part of a report that aired on Channel 6 news in Miami: "Frustration and anger nearly boiled over in Doral after the Miami-Dade Elections Department announced it would provide and accept ballots Sunday.

"A long line quickly formed outside the elections department headquarters after the announcement that voters would be allowed to cast in-person absentee ballots for four hours. But so many voters showed up that election officials said they were overwhelmed and closed their doors …"

OK, first of all, what's wrong with this picture? I'm not even in the elections business but I can tell you right off the bat one thing that's clearly wrong with this. Only in Florida would they have an "in-person absentee ballot." Uh, hello? The last time I checked, "absent" means your not there. But apparently, in Florida, they don't even know what absent means.

And of course everyone understandably gets confused when you show up in person to cast an "absentee" ballot. Also, anytime there is a public election event like that in Florida, everyone should know that tons of people will show up. Probably most of the people who came to vote absentee ballots in person were people who just saw it as a good excuse to get out of the retirement home for a little while.

Come on, Florida, get your act together. I mean, it's not rocket science people: You add up the votes for Romney, then you add up the votes for Obama, and you see who has the most.

If anyone has forgotten, we spent months after the 2000 election waiting on Florida, and that would have taken even longer than it did if it weren't for the lucky coincidence that the president's brother was the governor of the state. If he hadn't stepped in and said, "Uh, I counted the votes myself and my brother won" – well, we would probably still be counting those votes today and trying to figure out who won that election that took place 12 years ago.

And, once again, in 2012, just like and 2000, Florida is the state that's straggling behind, pulling up the rear out of breath because they can't keep up with the rest of us.

If this were Survivor, Florida would unquestionably be the very first state voted off the island.

But, like I said, fortunately this time, in this election at least, we didn't have to wait on Florida because we went ahead and decided the election without them.

Speaking of Florida, that state isn't just slow when it comes to elections – Florida is slooooow in all things. And while we are being honest, let's call Florida what it really is: Heaven's Waiting Room.

Have you seen how they drive down there? Those drivers make you people around here look like you know how to drive – something which clearly is not the case.

Everyone down there is driving around with their left turn signal on since they left home this morning. They drive at like 10 miles per hour on the freeway, going la-de-dah la-deh-dah in their heads, totally oblivious to the cars behind them or around them.

Speaking of being confused, I'm very confused right now by Apple about what in the world we are supposed to call the … well, you see what I mean? I can't even finish that sentence, because I have no idea what in the world we're supposed to call it.

By "it," I mean the iPad that came out after the iPad 2 but before the iPad 4. Now, common sense would dictate that it would be called "the iPad 3," which is clearly what Apple should have named it in the first place – you know, since it came after 2 and before 4. However, interestingly, that is the one thing we are definitely not supposed to call it because Apple told us not to. When it came out, Apple said to call it "the new iPad."

And when it was released earlier this year Apple just referred to it as the "new iPad," which worked fine for about seven months because then you had the iPad, the iPad 2 and the "new" iPad, and everything was clear.

But last month, when Apple released the iPad minis, the company also surprised everyone by coming out with a new iPad – one that's called the iPad 4. So now, you can't call the new iPad the new iPad because it's not the new iPad. Now, if you say new iPad, everyone thinks you're talking about the iPad 4 and not the other one, whatever it's called, because that's not the new one anymore. I guess we should call it the "old new iPad," but that doesn't really sound right either.

I just bought Taylor Swift's new album Red and I've been playing it a lot on my iPod. I don't care if it is uncool or not: I am admitting in public that I now have every Taylor Swift album and I just have one thing to say to her: Taylor, you had your heart broken in high school. OK, I get that. We all get that. We know: It was very bad for you. We understand. Despite any impression you may have to the contrary, you have successfully been able to convey that fact to us in your songs.

So, Taylor, in case you were wondering – which apparently you still may be – let me assure you once and for all that we got it. We understand. You went through some very bad breakups in high school. We got it.

Hey, speaking of voting, one of the scams this year was in Virginia, where there were people calling others – presumably those suspected of being members of the opposing party – and telling them they could vote by phone and then taking their votes over the phone. If you haven't figured out how this scam works, since those people think they've already voted (by phone) they don't show up and cast a real vote.

Now, these scammers have come under a lot of fire for committing a crime and attempting to disrupt the proper election process but, if you ask me, these people are doing us all a real service.

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Those people should not be put in jail – they should be given the key to the city.

It may be politically incorrect to say this but that does not make it any less true: The people who fall for that scam are not exactly the same voters that ideally you want voting anyway.

So those scammers are actually doing society a favor. Under election law it may be technically referred to as a crime, however, in evolutionary science, it's referred to as thinning the heard.

Friday night, I was enjoying The Who at the Greensboro Coliseum when I was stunned to look over and see Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne at the concert. Now, if you ask me, a man of his age, stature and station in life – one who represents the entire legal branch of Guilford County government – should not be attending a rock concert, gallivanting around, rocking and rolling at all hours of the night.

What makes it even worse is that, at the concert, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt – not one of the very serious-looking suits that he should wear everywhere he goes in public since he's representing Guilford County.

It's like when you are a kid and you see a teacher somewhere outside of school – like in a grocery store or somewhere – and you, stunned, look at your teacher and you are like, "Miss Johnson, what in the world are you doing here!?" And she looks at you and says, "Uh, I'm buying groceries," and you know that there's really no law against a teacher being out in public like that but you also know deep down that there is something really wrong about it because they are not supposed to be seen outside of the school. Teachers aren't supposed to be running around in the real world like that.

Much less be at a rock concert of all things.

Mitt Romney was doing very well there a week or so before the elections, and I never thought in a million years that, in the last week, Obama would be saved by a nature channel named National Geographic, a post-tropical cyclone named Sandy and a Republican governor named Chris Christie.

And I might throw in that mix, by the way, the highly mysterious drop in the price of gas right before the election.

I didn't see all that coming – that confluence of forces working together for Obama at the last minute like that.

Before the election, no one had ever heard of Sandy; Chris Christie was thought to be a staunch Romney supporter; and no one knew that National Geographic even had a dog in that game.

Just before the election, I watched the National Geographic movie The Raid on Osama bin Laden, and it ended with Obama's speech after the killing, with flags waiving, people cheering and music swelling over his announcement.

I couldn't believe National Geographic was airing this blatant piece of propaganda on Sunday, Nov. 4, two days before the election. I found out later – and this is no joke – that, in the original version of the movie, they had a sound bite of Romney speaking of the ill-advised nature of taking action in Pakistan without telling the Pakistani government first. They were made to take that part out because it was just too over the top obvious. Still, it was an odd coincidence that they aired that movie two nights before the election.

On the other hand, this is National Geographic, and I suppose you could have guessed that they were liberal all along because when I was growing up, they were the only ones bringing female frontal nudity into the elementary schools.

Oh well, don't despair: Four years will be over before you know it, and when it is, the country will no doubt finally be ready for the Herman Cain/Sarah Palin ticket, which will no doubt be victorious, and I'll bet that when that happens, on the day after Election Day 2016, there will be free pizza for everyone.