We watch way too much CNN here at "The Gods Are Bored." It gets us all riled up where election results are concerned. So tonight I'm going to go to bed, pull the covers up to my chin, and listen to sports talk radio.
This year I used a mail-in ballot for the first time. It made me sad.
When I was a kid back in the 1960s, my dad always took me with him when he went to vote. He took me right in the booth with him, and it was so exciting when those curtains closed. I don't remember if he let me flip the levers. I doubt it, because he wasn't that cavalier. But I do distinctly remember the bustle of the polling place, the click of the curtain, the hush of the booth. And being with my dad, a staunch Republican who voted for Goldwater and Nixon. (Because Lincoln won the war.)
Of course I didn't think of it at the time, but when my dad made voting an event -- and showed how the process worked -- he created a comfort for me as a voter myself. When I went into a voting booth for the first time at age 21, I knew how it worked. I was comfortable.
There was only one time I didn't vote. It was a state election for governor and legislature. What the Hell. Why bother? Ahem, BAMMMMP!!!! So many Democrats stayed home that night that New Jersey wound up with a human pustule named Chris Christie.
EXHIBIT A: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ANNE DOESN'T VOTE
Lesson learned! I don't shrug off those state contests anymore.
It's not the same, pushing a paper ballot into a drop box. How much fun is that? But I did it, and if I ever get any grandchildren, I'll make it an event -- let them put the ballot in the box, and then take them for cake, candy, and ice cream.
If you have a child, teach them to vote the same way you teach them to trick-or-treat.
Knock on wood, I am in fairly good health. It's my prayer that I some day get to shove a ballot in a box that has THIS guy's name on it.
EXHIBIT B: THE FUTURE I WANT TO SEE
Vote blue, no matter who!
