Voting Was a VALtastrophe! PART 2: The Portico

When we last convened, Val had sat herself down to vote, taking care not to leak blood from her bleeding forearm onto the table or ballot. Sitting right next to the worker's table on the left, she got an earful.

The worker gals were now having a conniption because a man came in and reported that SOMEBODY WAS PARKED IN THE PORTICO!!! Such excitement. Whispered shouts (that's the best way I can describe their frenzy) across the room from table to table:

"Somebody is parked in the portico!"

"We need to tell Kevin!"

"I don't know where he is."

"He was out in the hall a while ago."

"Kevin needs to go out and tell them to move!"

"They're parked in the portico!"

"I'll go look for Kevin!"

Kevin is the county clerk, in charge of elections. Not sure what he was overseeing at this time, but one of the worker gals went out to check on the car in the portico. She came back to whisper-shout to the others:

"It's a woman voting. She needs curb-side voting. Her husband came in to get her a ballot, and one of us has to be out there watching. He's parked there for the curb-side voting. We've got [SOMEBODY] out there with them."

By now, Hick was inside, and sitting at the table in front of me. We finished at the same time. Hick was going to take my ballot to feed through the scanner, but I told him it probably wasn't allowed. Not that the Portico Panic-ers would have noticed...

By the time I got to the scanner, there was a line of four old ladies ahead of me, two with canes. As you might imagine, the line moved slowly. Then they turned to swim upstream back through the room to the entrance, when you're supposed to go out the door at the back of the room, and come up the hall to get back out. Hick and I did that, and we stopped at the restrooms. 

Of course on this day when I needed to wash off my mysteriously bleeding arm, the sink was a motion-activated type like casinos have, not a faucet with handles. AND there was no paper towel dispenser, but only the blow-dryer machines on the wall. I had to fight the motion sensor to start the water, and scoop some of it to my arm before it shut off in three seconds! Then keep turning it on to rinse my blood out of the white sink. I did not try drying my wound with the jet-powered air, but chose to get some toilet paper out of a stall to dab at it.

I met Hick in the hall, and he went ahead to drive A-Cad back to pick me up out front. Which was another problem. It looked like a family reunion under the portico! I could not get to the ramp. It was the same black SUV that was there when I went in. 

A woman was sitting in the passenger seat. Her husband (I presume) hovering over her, standing at the open door. A worker gal standing on one side of the ramp behind him, talking to a random lady in front of her, who was asking directions to a fast-food restaurant. Into this cluster I needed to advance, to get down to street level without stepping off the curb. To walk halfway to the parking lot to get into A-Cad. Hick could not drive under the portico, that lane being blocked by the black SUV, and a line of cars coming the opposite direction, dropping off voters, a couple of whom had canes. 

I hobbled closer to the ramp. Worker Gal turned around suspiciously, like I was eavesdropping. Which I suppose I was, while waiting to be noticed, not wanting to interject myself into their deep conversation of how to get to lunch.

"Sorry. I just need to walk down this ramp."

"Oh, let me help you!" Worker Gal stepped to the other side of the ramp, and grabbed the flabby flesh of my upper left old-lady arm.

I appreciate her gesture. But there was absolutely no help involved in that act, save her satisfaction of doing a good deed. It was really nice, but no way could her flimsy fingers have stopped me from falling if I got off-balance. At least I was down the ramp. I walked along the drive, waiting for Hick to pull up in A-Cad. Coming towards me was a middle-aged lady, trailed by an old woman with a cane. I guess she wasn't able to drop her off, what with the traffic jam under the portico.

WHY DID THAT GUY PARK UNDER THE PORTICO, BLOCKING THE RAMP???

Obviously, his wife was not getting out of the car, since he went in to request curbside voting. Did sitting in front of the ramp enable her to vote better? He could have parked in any other space. There were some along the front drive prior to the portico. Since an election worker would be coming out anyway, there was no need to park RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HANDICAP RAMP.

The election people should have planned ahead for curbside voting, since they seemed to know the rules about it. Could have put up some orange cones and a sign that a couple spaces were reserved for curbside voting. It's not rocket science.

I guess there were no former VALEDICTORIANS on the election staff...