I Already Made Up My Mind

I exercised my rights as an American today. I voted. I had this brilliant idea that if I did early voting, I could avoid the crowd on Tuesday.  Well, not so much... But, it wasn't the crowd I was expecting.

I arrived at the polling site.  I knew I was at the right place because of all the placards littering the grass on my way in.  Actually, you couldn't tell there was grass because of all the campaign signs.  Seriously?  Even if I didn't already know who I was voting for, how would a sign with an annonymous name on it help me?  Do people, on their way to vote, get out a pen and write the names of candidates on their hands so they know who to vote for? How do they decide?  Whomever has the best sign wins? Really?

As I started walking toward the polling place, I was confronted with a wall of people.  Everyone was smiling and waving at me.  I looked behind me to see if George Clooney had somehow appeared behind me.  Nope, it was just me.  So what are all these people doing?  Did I win some contest and this was a hidden camera segment?  As I got closer, everyone was asking me if I was on my way to cast my ballot.  Well, duh, I do seem to be at the voting place so that would be a reasonable deduction.

As soon as I admitted I was there to vote, I was surrounded by people waving leaflets in my face.  Let me get this straight... I am here to vote, you think I have no idea who I am voting for and if I read this leaflet, I will vote for your candidate.  Seriously?  As politely as I could, I informed them that I knew who I was voting for and none of them were from the political party I was going to support.  Okay, I wasn't polite.  But still, is this legal?  Why do I have to run a gauntlet to get to my polling center?   I kept walking until an actual candidate caught my eye.  Actually, she planted herself in front of me, hand outstretched for me to shake and asking for my vote.  I lost it.  I told her I wouldn't vote for her nor her party even if someone was holding a gun to my head.  Magic words... the sea of people parted and I was all alone on the sidewalk.  Like a swarm of lemmings, the campaign workers had rushed over to another likely voter asking the same stupid  'are you here to vote' question. 

As I entered the building, a security guard was sitting near the open doorway, shaking his head.  I looked at him, he looked at me and we both started laughing.  'That's the best one I've seen all day', he said.  Cool, glad I could brighten your day.  Now, if I can just get my ballot before the ink on my hand runs and I can't see what names I wrote down...