Tuesday, November 07, 2006
"If You Don't Vote, You Can't Complain."
Well, I voted. So I get my complain-all-year-free card in the mail soon, right?

And it's funny that I was able to vote. I actually didn't plan on it today, because I had to work from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night, and I didn't have all that much strength of emotion about state politics. Or national politics. Or school politics. I mean, I barely have the energy to remain both conscious and civil during office politics.

Which were in full force this morning, because I was still feeling under the weather but well enough to be at work. Because, trust me, if I'm feeling too sick to go to work, then I won't go to work. Even if I'm thinking about feeling too sick to go to work, or if I just wish I was too sick to go to work, then I won't go to work. Are you sensing a trend?

So this morning, I was there, but I sounded bad and looked like hell warmed over. Not that this is terribly different from an average day, but it was enough that Perfect J was visibly recoiling every time I exhaled. I could actually see her thoughts when she started visualizing the construction of a large tub of boiling bleach into which she could dip me and anything I have ever touched, just in case. On its own, this probably would have been more than sufficient entertainment to keep me at work all day, but then Supervisor N came in and she was also adamant that I didn't need to be there and I should go home. Fine, twist my arm, whatever.

I went home, puttered for a while, and then went to vote. It was actually just cute enough to be nauseating without actually inducing vomit: Willem and I went to vote together, and then went and wandered through the small-town tragedy 43-year-old hardware store going-out-of-business sale... just so romantic.

Actually, it kind of was.

So, I voted. Therefore, my complaints:
1. The drapes at the polling station were too stiffly starched, so whenever someone left their little cage, they briefly opened their two neighbors' cages, as well. What if we were voting naked, huh? How embarrassing would that have been?

2. Election night coverage is annoying yet somehow hypnotic. But it preempts everything else, and I'm just not interested in men in suits whose heads don't move talking about numbers.

3. The guy who ran against Charlie Crist in Florida really should have billed himself as the anti-Crist. He wouldn't have won anyway, but the title would have been way cooler.

4. For a while, the candidates for one of the NH Congress seats were just ludicrously close: Jeb Bradley with 74,337 votes and Carol Shea-Porter with 74,308. 31 29 votes out of 148,645. That's just insane. Carol has since pulled ahead. No hanging chads for us.
My mathematician husband was appalled at my error. Me, too, in all honesty. Stupid elections anyway.

5. My husband has learned well what to say to make me happy. (Though, no, it was not, "Here's your muffin, I didn't eat it, I just moved it.") Such as, "We had to vote for nine people for the NH House of Representatives, and I didn't know much about them. So I chose the seven women on the ballot, plus the other two guys I'd heard of." Good for him. His mother would simply die if she knew. Especially since he didn't vote for her types of people. ESPECIALLY since her types of people were decidedly routed in New York.

6. It's 11:30 and I'm still awake after announcing I was tired back at 10:00 p.m. Stupid elections, anyway.

There. Enough complaining for tonight, don't you think?