Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Very rarely will I have the wherewithal to stand in line and spend more than 15 minutes waiting for something, be it gas or Nintendo Wiis or delicious sandwiches, because the commodity is usually easily attainable, provided you time your visit to beat the bell curve. When I pulled into an early voting precinct for a second try on Friday at 2:45 PM, fully believing I had selected a time that would right-angle the population at large, I was promptly put in my place.

Civic responsibility apparently can be just as appealing as a burrito, and the 45-minute wait, which easily ballooned into an hour or two as the line steadily grew, suggested the demand to vote was certainly there. In the final accounting, 45 minutes every four years seemed more than reasonable, a price easily paid to partake in something larger than myself. Here, at this point in time, it felt as if my vote, however small it may have seemed, was dropped into history itself.

What came after the wait was pleasantly familiar. The hurried, nomadic, yet strangely orderly setup of the voting booths and registration tables. Handing my license to a woman old enough to have seen Washington himself cross the Delaware. The same slick computer system they used for the primaries. What was surprising was the metric shitload of officials and questions after page one, where a more reasonable citizen would’ve abstained from voting because of lack of information. I took it upon myself to be an arbiter of balance, denying a vote to those who ran unopposed, approving the continued existence of potholes, giving big-ups to other Bens, and choosing any name with stripperly undertones. I’m pretty sure I voted for a Destiny or Candi or someone who sounded familiar with both the polls and, if I may, the poles.

There was one judge whom I voted against, however, knowing full well why. This fellow had taken it upon himself to make camp in front of the parking garage, accosting passers-by with a constant grin and ready handshakes. I assume his appearance was founded on two suppositions: first, would-be voters would care to see a minor line item come to life before their very eyes and, secondly, actually want to touch him. Fortunately I had left the office with backup, and at the precise moment we passed by the danger zone, just as the tall animatronic began extending a paw, I smoothly swiveled to safety and sacrificed King Calm’s right hand to Judge Friendly. It was like a backwards Secret Service.