Election Day

1. By 9 o'clock the lines were not bad at the polls, and I didn't have to wait at all. On the way in I passed a few people soliciting.
"Would you like a Democratic ballot?" they asked.
"Oh no thank you," I said, "I am well-informed and don't vote at the whim of some party. I am the part of the system that works."
Emboldened, I continued down the sidewalk towards my polling place, prepared to turn away two more chipper looking young professionals in raincoats. I began to say "No thank you," but was cut off.
"I'm Kim Gray and I'm asking for your vote today," said the one, pressing a pamphlet into my hand.
"Charles Samuels, asking for your vote," said the second.
I'd never met actual politicians who wanted me to vote for them before. And I had not prepared as well as I'd thought. I'd done no research at all for the school board and city council races that these two wet and friendly people were participating in.
I entered the hospital to vote, found the lines pleasingly small, and went right into a booth with a touch-screen, another first for me. I made all the choices I'd researched, and then stared for a minute or two at the choices for City Council and School Board. The thought of them smiling at me in the rain seemed to represent a fine thing about our system- that people wanting political power should first be made to grovel. Maybe if these people were willing to dress up in nice clothes and stand in the rain for hours smiling at people they deserved my vote. On the other hand, I had no idea what either of them stood for, and not wanting to give my support to someone who for all I knew could support feeding stray cats to the homeless I left those two boxes unchecked. Or untouched, or whatever it is you would say in a digital age. Then I went to see if Starbucks would make good on an offer for free coffee on election day.

2. Picking the kids up from school the other day I heard two first graders discussing the Presidential race:
"McCain is bad cause he wants to destroy the environment."
"Yeah. Baracka Obama has the most votes."
"Yeah, if Obama gets any more votes he will win."
"If I was countiing votes, I'd be like 'McCain, a thousand votes. Forty votes. six hundred votes.' Then I'd be like, Baracka Obama, infinity times a million google votes!"
"Hahaha yeah."
Then a kindergartner on the second row told everyone that Obama was not a Christian, putting me in an awkward spot.
"I don't want to hear any talk like that."
"But it's true, he isn't."
"No, that's a lie," I told him knowing full well I probably just called his Dad a liar, "people say mean things that aren't true sometimes about candidates because they don't want them to win, but that's bad. If you disagree with someone that's fine, but you have to be honest."
I then kicked myself for the next two days for talking about not being a Christian as though it were a bad thing. If I ever have kids they're gonna believe in Santa way longer than they believe in Jesus.