I was glad that we voted in a garage on Tuesday and not in the hall of a local church as we did a few years ago, in 2004. Picture this…a first time voter (naturalized citizen) comes from a mostly atheist country and gets to vote in a church. Not only was the voting in a church, it was in the main hall where they have services, and Jesus was staring down at us from the wall wearing a bloody crown of thorns. We’re talking a two foot tall face of Jesus. It was the presidential election….and Jesus wept. Then the African American female registrar thought I would be “influencing” my husband’s vote and so basically told us not to talk or share information during the process. Well, we’d made only one list after discussing each topic and of course we had to pass it back and forth. (Any other married folks out there discuss or “influence” your spouses in an election–come on, people!) My husband came out of the Jesus hall pissed.

This time voting went much better, although

there were a couple of jokes made that make one wonder. First, there was a computer that could “fill in the bubbles” for you if you didn’t want to do it yourself. I decided I wanted to fill in my own bubbles. I shook my head and said, “nah, I know about those machines….” I wasn’t the only one with that kind of attitude towards newfangled machines at the polls. And this led to a discussion about the various and sundry issues surrounding voting machines. Then I brought my ballot and fed it into the ballot counter. The guy joked (I think?) and said, “No problem, it just goes into the shredder….” The lady said, “No, no, that’s in other states–” and then I said, “it could be just up the hill from here–” (Think Brown–Doolittle)

Speaking of the Brown–Doolittle race….Charlie Brown made a heck of a showing. Too bad the voting pool there has the IQ of roast beef and voted for nepotism, corruption, and bribe-taking. But maybe my words are too strong. Who knows? In 6 months, we’ll see. Maybe Brown will run again when they have to replace Doolittle…speculation speculation.