This morning, before heading to the gym, I went to do my duty.
I walked in the poll center (in a church…hmmm) and hanging from the tables were the requisite signs A-L and M-Z, so I queued up in front of the latter. One of the ladies asked me what my last name was. I told her. She helpfully informed me that I was in the correct line.
My turn came up and I had my driver’s license ready. Long realizing that my last name is difficult to handle and realizing that, to some, it doesn’t necessarily go with the face--more about that in a later post--I spell out my last name and hand the woman my license. She began to look for it on the registered voters' list.
After the passing of a few more seconds than was reasonable, I looked down and noticed that she was looking in the Ps. “My last name begins with O,” I said helpfully and the without the malice that usually characterizes my pre-exercise, pre-caffeinated state. “You’re in the Ps.” She smiled sheepishly and apologetically. Now having committed a few ‘duhs’ in my time, I’m willing to forgo judgment on a person’s intellect in the face of just one.
However, there was another.
When the lady got to the Os, she points out a name, turns the book around and says, “there you are.” Well, there I wasn’t. The name she had pointed me to was “Obom,” or something similar. My name was five lines down; I pointed it out to her and politely compared it to that of my driver’s license, which she still had.
Again the sweet, sheepish smile was flashed.
Later when I got home, I only had to say the words “polling place” to my great-aunt—with whom I live—and she was on a tangent. “Boy, there was one stupid broad that works in there!” Heh. No one can quite insult another like a 'sweet' little eighty-two-year-old lady can.
Speaking of old ladies, there was one in the polling place whose mental faculties didn’t seem up to the level of my aunt’s. She was in her booth at the same time I was in mine. Just as I finished, I hear a cracked voice shouting, “Where’s Davis? I can’t find Davis on here!” (Sigh) I don’t think the lady quite grasped the situation being presented before her.
Pray for us Californians.
