Way busy these last several days. Trunk or Treat. Baking birthday cakes. Trips to the store, the park, the church. The Zoo tomorrow. Trick or treat, too. I have a dozen people coming for a little girl’s first birthday and a breakfast party on Saturday morning. My kitchen is a WRECK. My back hurts. My foot hurts. And I stood in line for two-and-a-half hours to vote.
My thinking was this. Everybody is early voting at the 4 polling places in our county this week. I will go on election day and vote then. It worked out that way 4 years ago. I went to early vote and waited for HOURS and my husband went to our presinct and cast a ballot in 20 minutes. I wanted to go local on election day this time around. BUT. Tony has to work ALL day on election day. He will have zero time to go vote. So he wanted to go after work this week. You know, when the lines are the longest. It occurred to me this morning, that I could go and stand in line for him today and then call him when I am about 30 minutes from going in. That’s what we did.
When I got in line, I told the people around me that me and the kids were saving a space for my husband. They all seemed OK with that. Which was pretty cool. The voting only takes a moment, but everything else is ssssssllllllooooowwwww……
All the school buses going by had kids screaming at the long line “OH-BAH-MA!!! OH-BAH-MA!!!!” They can’t vote yet, but they sure have an opinion. My girls were super good, until I got to the voting machine, where Saralyn cast her own ballot… in her pants. Stinker!
Everyone’s been good natured. Everyone’s waiting. Everyone’s voting. 35%, according to the New York Times, will cast their votes early in the 32 states that allow such. ALL of us who have voted want the political ads to STOP! We’re SO not going to be swayed now. DONE! I don’t care if Jim Martin has been caught doing the tango with a Mongolian Goat. I don’t care about the baby talk you-did-this / no-I-didn’t! blah-blah-blah.
I’m done. You can stop shouting at me now No need to call anymore. Knock it off or I’m sending the pooper.
I wanted to say as we left the polling place that Saralyn cast a ballot for diaper change; but, I didn’t want to violate the campaigning rule.
George Stephanopolis was hand-wringing over the early voting on the Thursday ABC newscast that early voters are going to the polls “without all the information.” He cited the Caspar Weinberger indictment of 1992, the Walker Bush DUI from 22 years earlier in 2000 and the month old binLaden tape from 2004 as “evidence.” For a formerly bright guy that ran a national campaign, George picked three examples of irrelevance. Ross Perot tipped the election to Clinton in 92, Gore was beaten by the butterfly ballot in 2000, and Kerry failed to get the under 30’s to the polls by running away from equal rights measures on state ballots. After 20 months for Obama and nine years for McCain, if the American press didn’t vet the candidates thoroughly by now, they weren’t going to in the next four days. We can turn the TV off this weekend if you wish.
Thanks for holding the place in line. I really like it when I get to vote for somebody instead of choosing lesser of two duds.
-Tony
I am allowed early voting, but I never do it because I LOVE actually voting on Election Day. Makes my outer cynic shut up for a moment while my inner patriot swells with pride.