Allow yourself to imagine, for a moment, the greatest disaster to occur during the era of humankind. Something of a magnitude rivaling two Titanics sinking side-by-side into an endangered wildlife reserve and then blowing up an orphanage. Such is the magnitude of the tragedy that occurred in Iowa last weekend.

Thousands of Democrats full of conviction and pride descended upon their local precinct polling station to cast their lots with their candidate of choice. In any one precinct, the process probably looked something like this — the early arrivals, the old Democrats, show up hours before the event begins and takes their spot behind the repurposed track and field hurdle with the name “Biden” taped to one side.

Then, a sizable group of average folks who all have shirts that say “I’m 1/16th Cherokee!” take their place behind the “Warren” sign. You look around and realize a single person somehow walked in without you noticing and is holding up a “Yang Gang” poster.

There’s a group of Klobuchar supporters that all have white T-shirts and jeans on, not talking to anyone around them. A swarm of rats under a trenchcoat stumble behind the “Buttigieg” sign. Then a river of Bernie supporters yelling, “He’s not THAT old!” take up so much of the room that the Biden supporters are forced to sit in the rafters.

That is when something begins to feel amiss. The volunteers work as hard as they can, but the equations they were given from the Democratic National Committee are written in hieroglyphs that no one is able to translate. With many precincts in races too close to call, the volunteers are forced to think on their toes, and each precinct tackles the challenge of counting everyone in a different way. 

Most take the lowest scoring candidates and tell their supporters to choose their second favorite candidate, adding them to the total votes already there. It is still not enough for most — the race is still too close to call.

So, the volunteers, light on sleep and out of patience, begin to count the final votes. Bernie is winning across many of the precincts, but then each of the individual rats begins to cast their vote from inside of their trench coat carapaces. The numbers swing back in favor of Mayor Pete. Warren is the only other candidate even close to the two frontrunners, but it is obvious the race will come down to the old man and the rat king.

The tabulations are already running hours behind schedule because none of the volunteers are trained with the new Shadow Voting app, and people begin to panic. The formulas used to convert the votes into delegates are coming up with negative square roots and fractions of people.

Many take matters into their own hands. Volunteers have the Bernie and Buttigieg supporters arm wrestle for disputed delegates. They do coin flips to break ties. At many locations, the armies of rodents are too powerful, and they take over the delegate assignments and give as many as they can to Pete. Fires are started, offerings are sacrificed. Chaos reigns.

When asked about the safety and validity of the results from the caucuses, DNC chairman Tom Perez told reporters everything was going according to plan.

“You know, rats are people too,” Perez said in an interview. “We know we barely support voting reform for all human beings, but figured why not let Pete give these little rodents a chance? It might pave the way to some real bipartisan voting policies. Also, we really just hate that old socialist guy. What’s his name? Bornie? God we hate that guy, too close to a socialist. Gross.”

The Bernie campaign, with 6,000 more votes but two less delegates than Buttigeig, decided to declare its victory. This confused many, as Buttigeig declared himself the winner a day prior. The public is confused beyond belief, and that’s apparently just the way it’s going to stay.