Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Brooklyn Boy, Patriot


I am trying to vote in my local primary. In the tiny voting room at John Jay High School they do not have a sign up with my election district’s number on it, but I have come prepared and know what to do. Yet there is a snare—at the entrance I hear a Tall-Skinny Democrat complaining on the phone to her (husband? mom? significant other TSD?) that it took a very long time to vote. Why so long? Ah, here is why: The flock of women who were kidnapped and forced into servitude as election observers naturally assume I am a Democrat and fill out the wrong voting card and give me the wrong ballot. There are no Republican ballots. I frown, and after five minutes of riffling at the desk, the Lady in Red Shirt goes off to an invisible closet to find my ballot. I was Dem voter No. 5, now I am GOP voter No. O. A very long line of people (four people) has formed behind me, and I feel like I am trying to buy herpes medicine and GOP hair plugs at the same time.

Confusion reigns, not the dredlocked man with the loud talking who has appointed himself King of Observers. After waiting patiently for the electors of servitude to do something, anything, I take my unobservant hands and pull out the bottom packet of plastic-wrapped ballots from the leaning tower on the desk in front of the Republican election observer. It is the missing GOP ballots. A plot? I frown again. “Is it all right if I open this up and take my ballot? I want to vote now.” Sure, sure, yes yes baby sir. The loose blue plastic wrap is too difficult for the Republican observer to open—this takes a good 60 seconds of arthritic tearing. I am handed my third voting card by the Lady in Red Shirt, this one identifying me as GOP voter No. 1. Huzzah. I scan my ballot with my eyes and pen. My choices: A dairy farmer, a political consultant, a businessman who wants to put welfare recipients in jail and teach them to brush their teeth properly. The electioneers were right: I should have voted for the Democrats.

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