It Only Hurts When I Blog

Greetings, Bloggy Voters and Absentee Balloters! Did you vote?

It's the Day-After-Election-Day, and, as it often happens, it rained all day on all the folks waiting patiently in line to exercise their privilege - as I put it - to choose the lesser of two (or more) evils.

I'll just tell a couple of stories from yesterday...

I arrived at work just before 8am, extra-large-nonfat-cappuccino in hand. One of my co-workers who normally gets in around 6:30am was also arriving. He tooted his horn at me, and I waited for him and we walked in together. He had gone to vote before work, and he said he was FIRST in line. I was impressed by that! Then he told me that his WIFE was about THIRTY people in back of him, and that he didn't let her cut in line to get in front with him, and he called out to her that she should have gotten up earlier!

I thought that was pretty funny and remarked that I hoped SHE was ok with that 'Because if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.'

Our CIO sent out an email encouraging people to vote, and if we needed extra time at lunch or the end of the day, to work something out with our managers. I took advantage of that opportunity, and took a short lunch so I could leave half an hour early to go vote in the afternoon.

Next time I'll go first thing in the morning, I don't like to be around all the people and traffic in the pitch dark. I didn't think of that!

I got to the Volunteer Fire Department Building (A one room concrete box) and there were quite a few cars lining both sides of 'Bear Creek Pike'. I parked, and walked in.

The 'concrete box' was pretty empty except for three portable voting stands, a table where three registration-ladies (who could easily have been mistaken for church-supper-ladies) sat with blankets on their laps, and several 'helpers' stood in addition to the voters in line. As folks entered, the helpers would walk away from their stations to shake someones hand or hug someone, and then run back over to their stands. A pretty relaxed atmosphere.

There were about 20 people (I tried to count them so I could tell YOU) in line. I was by far the best dressed one there, and I was 'business casual'.

Most were dressed in their fall 'Farm casual', 'Redneck casual' or 'Walmart casual' outfits. A couple of scruffy, unshaven men dressed in 'redneck casual' eyed me. I ignored them.

Someone's cell phone went off with a musical ring tone, and an older man standing next to me started a little dance. I turned to him, looked him in the eye and asked in a neutral tone 'Is it safe for me to be standing next to you?' 'No, Ma'am', he replied. 'I get these fits every night around this time.' I laughed. Leave it to me to stand next to a practical jokester.

Since he seemed nice, I tried a little conversation (which was a mistake).

'I won't recognize anyone here unless I've seen them at the dump', I said. 'Oh?' he said. 'Which dump do you work at?'. I explained that I GO to the dump, I don't WORK at the dump. He countered by telling me that he knows most of the people who work at the dump, but he hadn't recognized me. Thanks for clarifying that, bud.

Anyway, it didn't take long, maybe half an hour or so, and I was on my way back home.

Feel free to post comments if you have a poll-tale to tell. TTFN and have a nice day!