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I got a sticker that says I voted! :) It makes you feel a little like your five years old. In Australia they get fined if they don't vote, here you get a sticker if you do. :)
I must have been in line for at least an hour, because I left here right around 7am or shortly thereafter and it was 8:15 when I got home. It was amazing - I've never seen a line at my polling place before, and never had anyone else. Although someone pointed out that maybe many of us weren't in this neighborhood for the last presidential election. The line stretched out the door of Reiche School, across the (admittedly small - like a dozen cars) parking lot and down to the sidewalk, and when we got into the hall we found it was doubled back and divided, so there were three lines of people, one shuffling in and two shuffling back. I meant to check on my way out and see if it was any shorter by then, because it could just have been the first rush of people who wanted to be there before work, but I forgot.
Someone left their dog outside tied to a fence, and he had time to chew through his leash. Although it was an old leash and looked as though he'd had goes at it in the past, and really I have to wonder at the brain of a person who would leave a Rhodesian Ridgeback with an old, frayed leash.
A woman in the line had met this dog before and took charge of him, then handed him off to a campaigner when she went in (Campaigners are allowed to stand outside, but they're only allowed to say "I'm a friend of so-and-so.), and I heard the exchange as she spoke to one of the poll volunteers about it -
"Have you found her, yet?"
"Pretty vague description, not yet."
"I left the dog with that guy outside, can you keep an eye on him?"
"Keep an eye on that guy? I wouldn't give him a dog!"
A woman behind me with a fluffy purple scarf offered, "He's probably okay, he's a friend of somebody."
(and then we shuffled along very slowly for a while...)
I commented to purple scarf lady that of all these people, who presumably live in my neighborhood, I don't know any of them.
We shuffled along some more... People started phoning friends to take their kids to school.
There was a little girl named Sophie, one and a half years old, with a pink jacket and a pony tail straight up on top of her head, who trucked up and down the line continuously, because Mom stayed in one place (a volunteer, perhaps?) while Dad kept moving along in the line. She wanted to touch the fluffy purple scarf, which was piled over the woman's pocket book and in reach for a short person, but then flinched away when the scarf moved. (I don't think she noticed that the woman's hand was underneath it.) She watched the scarf wide-eyed, and then smiled at the woman as if to say, "I like you, it's just that animal I'm a little nervous of."
(shuffle, shuffle...)
The guy ahead of me stared for a long time at the fireman's standpipe coming out of the wall, so I said, "Yeah, don't open it."
"It doesn't seem like the sort of thing which should be in a school hallway, does it? Everyone would be trying to open it!"
It finally came my turn in line to give my name and someone got on the intercom and started rambling on about the coffee machines having been taken by someone, but they still had coffee, you just had to go around the corner of the school, ramble ramble ramble - meanwhile the woman with the book of names couldn't hear my sad little sore throat croak at all, so the whole like was held up. Which meant that when I got my ballot there were plenty of open booths.
And all the while I wondered why I'd taken a huge mug of tea with me, and eaten nothing, because my stomach only got emptier while my bladder got fuller.
But of course when I got home I had to write all this as soon as I peed, so now my stomach is eating itself. :)
-----------------------
*Number arrived at by using my age, the week of the year and the day of the week.
I must have been in line for at least an hour, because I left here right around 7am or shortly thereafter and it was 8:15 when I got home. It was amazing - I've never seen a line at my polling place before, and never had anyone else. Although someone pointed out that maybe many of us weren't in this neighborhood for the last presidential election. The line stretched out the door of Reiche School, across the (admittedly small - like a dozen cars) parking lot and down to the sidewalk, and when we got into the hall we found it was doubled back and divided, so there were three lines of people, one shuffling in and two shuffling back. I meant to check on my way out and see if it was any shorter by then, because it could just have been the first rush of people who wanted to be there before work, but I forgot.
Someone left their dog outside tied to a fence, and he had time to chew through his leash. Although it was an old leash and looked as though he'd had goes at it in the past, and really I have to wonder at the brain of a person who would leave a Rhodesian Ridgeback with an old, frayed leash.
A woman in the line had met this dog before and took charge of him, then handed him off to a campaigner when she went in (Campaigners are allowed to stand outside, but they're only allowed to say "I'm a friend of so-and-so.), and I heard the exchange as she spoke to one of the poll volunteers about it -
"Have you found her, yet?"
"Pretty vague description, not yet."
"I left the dog with that guy outside, can you keep an eye on him?"
"Keep an eye on that guy? I wouldn't give him a dog!"
A woman behind me with a fluffy purple scarf offered, "He's probably okay, he's a friend of somebody."
(and then we shuffled along very slowly for a while...)
I commented to purple scarf lady that of all these people, who presumably live in my neighborhood, I don't know any of them.
We shuffled along some more... People started phoning friends to take their kids to school.
There was a little girl named Sophie, one and a half years old, with a pink jacket and a pony tail straight up on top of her head, who trucked up and down the line continuously, because Mom stayed in one place (a volunteer, perhaps?) while Dad kept moving along in the line. She wanted to touch the fluffy purple scarf, which was piled over the woman's pocket book and in reach for a short person, but then flinched away when the scarf moved. (I don't think she noticed that the woman's hand was underneath it.) She watched the scarf wide-eyed, and then smiled at the woman as if to say, "I like you, it's just that animal I'm a little nervous of."
(shuffle, shuffle...)
The guy ahead of me stared for a long time at the fireman's standpipe coming out of the wall, so I said, "Yeah, don't open it."
"It doesn't seem like the sort of thing which should be in a school hallway, does it? Everyone would be trying to open it!"
It finally came my turn in line to give my name and someone got on the intercom and started rambling on about the coffee machines having been taken by someone, but they still had coffee, you just had to go around the corner of the school, ramble ramble ramble - meanwhile the woman with the book of names couldn't hear my sad little sore throat croak at all, so the whole like was held up. Which meant that when I got my ballot there were plenty of open booths.
And all the while I wondered why I'd taken a huge mug of tea with me, and eaten nothing, because my stomach only got emptier while my bladder got fuller.
But of course when I got home I had to write all this as soon as I peed, so now my stomach is eating itself. :)
-----------------------
*Number arrived at by using my age, the week of the year and the day of the week.
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I feel deprived =(
~Rose
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