Michaelsfishbowl

Daily writing prompt

Do you vote in political elections?

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Do I vote in political elections? No, I don’t vote in political elections. Are you serious? Voting? I traditionally spend election day – and evening – at home alternating between eating pizza and summer sausage with peanut butter and American cheese sandwiches and dunking Oreo cookies in chocolate milk until the sun sets when I switch to a 2 liter bottle of Coke and peanut M&Ms. And instead of watching the news and getting bored watching everyone talking about everything, I’m happy flipping between reruns of Housewives of Wherever and the Maury Povich Show. The only voting I do is picking who is and who is not the father. And yeah, I know what you’re thinking and it doesn’t have anything to do with the summer sausage and peanut butter with American cheese sandwich and you’re right: I do then spend the next 2-4 years bitching about the elections and all the things that are wrong with the country, and how it can be, they can be, you can be better. But so what? There’s no law says we have to vote and whose business is my complaining but my own? And really, it’s not like my vote would make a difference anyway, ‘ya know, and if people can’t get it right then I have the God-given right to complain about it.

“Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” – Keith Ellison, Attorney General of Minnesota

Yes, I vote. I vote in every political election and this is a numbskull question. And I’m guessing I may have disparaged and belittled the character of people who don’t vote and for that I’m… thinking about it.

“By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.” – David Foster Wallace

The one bad thing about voting for me is the feeling of having one chance to get it right or else. And not getting the candidates right, but the ballot right. We have paper ballots here and what if my hand shakes and I color outside the little oval a little bit? Or what if I don’t follow the line of text correctly and I color in the wrong hole? I know mistakes happen and the poll workers are there to help with that kind of thing, but then something like that happens and now I get on a list like, Goofy Voter Guy or something, and when I go back to vote in the next election and I give them my name, the room gets kind of quiet and all the poll workers glance over in my direction. Not obviously or anything like that, because poll workers are trained to be discrete, but it doesn’t take much on my part to see all the poll workers busy at their jobs and talking to other, more responsible, voters with steady hands and the ability to color in a circle and follow a line correctly, shifting their eyes to me. And then when I step up to that little table thing to vote and my back is to the room, there’ll be the inevitable hushed whispers of the poll workers and it’ll be impossible to avoid the words.

“Hey, that’s the guy.”
“Really? That’s him?”
“Yup.”
“Goofy Voter Guy?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“He’s better looking than I thought.”
“Don’t let that fool you. It’s what’s upstairs that counts.”
“You mean like—”
“Mmm hmm, the light’s on, but no one’s home.”
“Poor guy. How hard is it to color in a little circle, anyway?”
“I know, right?”
“Shh, he’s looking over here. Look busy.”

Yeah, all that. Or worse.

And worse.

And then by the time I’m finally done voting I’m so on edge that my hands shake when I reach out to accept the “I VOTED” sticker the poll worker near the door hands me and I drop in on the floor. Now I have to bend over and pray that I don’t rip my pants and as I bend to pick up the sticker it’s easy to hear the muffled laughs and the words.

“Goofy Voter Guy? Goofy Butterfingers Guy, is more like it!”
“I know, right?”
“At least he didn’t rip his pants when he bent over.”
“That would have been something!”

We have problems on the north, south, east and west. New York City, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago. Everybody has problems and personally, I don’t care” – Alice Cooper, Elected

The title of the song here, don’t do it. Don’t vote for me. I’m not running for anything, it’s just a good Chicago song. And in case you’re wondering what’s real and what’s not in this upside down world, I have never had a summer sausage with peanut butter and American cheese sandwich.