Civic Duty

I went to vote on Tuesday, as I hope everyone did. The line at my polling place was relatively long, but since I travel with both a book AND knitting, I was prepared in the event of a long wait.

[Before I start writing what happened, I would like to remind you that all of the people in the polling place are my neighbors. Not my next-door neighbors, but these people live in my neighborhood.]

As I walked up to the line to get signed in, I saw an animal control officer walking a pit-mix out of the school's office. She was very gentle with the dog, and took her time putting him in the kennel. This was a nice thing to see (her being gentle, not the dog getting hauled away).

It was probably about 60 degrees outside [freezing] and close to 80 degrees inside [boiling]. The woman two people ahead of me in line looked like a trashy, over-tanned, drag-queen makeup wearing version of Geena Davis.

GD had- apparently- not only never voted before, but felt that she should argue with the poll workers (who were all 80 + years old, except for one woman, who was about 40) about everything- including why the sign-in book was upside-down. This took at least fifteen minutes, to get her signed in and ready to sit down and wait her turn.

I get signed in, and go sit down. A woman sits down across the table in front of me, and she smells of three- count them, THREE- separate bodily functions. I try to ignore it, and read my book and knit, but it was truly gag-worthy.

Since they were slammed, it was an on-your-honor system as far as determining who went next. Basically, this means remembering who was in line ahead of you- pretty simple stuff.

GD is reading the ballot while we're waiting, making her selections on the cheat sheet- and she's up next. She asks if someone can go ahead of her, since she wasn't ready, which caused CHAOS. Well, old people chaos.

The woman ahead of me goes, which is fine, but Bodily Functions decides that she is TIRED of waiting, and totally takes my turn. At first, I was relieved, because I didn't have to smell her anymore, but then the woman who was supposed to go after Bodily Functions gets up.

I hopped up and made sure that I didn't get bumped out of place even further. My issue is this; what is up with people? Didn't they ever learn the age-old adage?

"No cuts, no butts, no coconuts."