From the Polls

I voted yesterday.  I should be excited and proud.  I studied political science.  I take my rights seriously.  I enjoy politics.  I keep my "I voted" stickers.  But this time I'm kind of ashamed. 

I realized yesterday about noon that it was election day.  "Shoot" I thought to myself, "who's running?"  So during nap time I jumped online and found out who was running.  My motto: whoever can win me over in five minutes or under gets my vote.  I found my candidate.

I went to the church around the block after dinner to do my civic duty.  I was thrown off when I had to go to some other room at the end of the hall instead of the gym where voting usually takes place.  There were two kind women sitting at a table and one man in front of me.  The election booths looked pretty tired, not like they were holding high tech computerized voting equipment.  Because they weren't.  Ok, I can do the punch the hole in the ballot with the little stick thing.  Nope, not that either.  After kind lady number 2 practically had to rip my wallet from my hands because I forgot to actually show them my driver's license when I got it out she handed me a slip of paper folded in half.  I walked to a booth.

This is the part that should be easy.  Marking my choice with the provided red pen and walking back to the table.  But on the instructions rather than mark 1 it said to mark 3.  I quickly marked my first choice.  I chose that candidate because s/he was the only person I found in less than 5 minutes who said something real.  Everyone else just said, "I'm committed to the city, I love it, I want to be a public servant, I'm so cool, vote for me."  How could I choose two more?  I picked a woman because I feel like we need more representation in politics and want to encourage women who get involved.  I have no idea what she believes.  My third choice I picked because it seemed like everyone else was doing it.  And everyone else has lived where I live longer than I have, so they should know. 

I walked back to the nice ladies at the table but didn't dare make eye contact fearing they could see through my eyes into my uniformed voting soul.  One took my ballot and ripped a part off and handed it back to me.  "Do I put it in here?" I asked pointing to the box that obviously holds completed ballots.  Only if you want to vote she said, laughing.  I put my ballot in the box because it was the least embarrassing option.  "It's been a long day and I've never voted this way before" I quipped and almost ran out of the room.

The whole time I was cleaning up dinner and doing the dishes I thought about how ridiculous my decision calculus was and argued with myself if it would have been better to have just stayed home.  On a positive note, I now have an "I Voted" sticker in my new wallet.