Voting, Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Val sprang out of bed early today, at the crack of 8:45, to get ready to vote. Actually, her alarm didn't go off. Her alarm, which was Hick. Supposed to wake her at 8:00, to get ready and leave at 9:00. Val plans, Hick laughs.

Anyhoo...Hick swove T-Hoe along the back roads to the church. Seriously. The main county road takes you right there. But Hick has to meander along backer back roads than a blacktop county highway. We even drove swove through an overflowing creek on a low-water bridge. I'm pretty sure that Hick's route didn't save us any time. Not that we're on a schedule.

The parking lot was full, except for two spaces at the back. We made our way into the church. It's our designated polling place. Whatever happened to separation of church and state, huh? We don't know anybody who attends this church, and it's about four miles farther out of town than we live. But hey! It's our designated polling place, so we don't really have any recourse. No early voting in Missouri, either. Here's a picture from dreary 2016.

Today was bright and sunny, though, after pouring rain yesterday. I eschewed the old-lady-mover and hobbled my way down the six steps to reach the basement voting area. I assume the old-lady-mover works, but we DID pass a man with a cane walking up after voting. Or maybe he, too, eschewed the old-lady-mover, but for different reasons. My own reason being that I don't want to end up like Mrs. Deagle in Gremlins. Here's picture of those stairs.

That's camera-hog Hick creeping into the frame. We were about 3rd and 4th in line. No giant paper voters' books this time. Technology has come to Backroads! We had to fork over our driver's license, which was laid on a little shelf on a notebook-looking-thingy on a platform. It popped up our name and address, which we verified, then signed with a rubber-tipped yellow miniature-pen-looking thingy.

One poor guy got denied. He had to step out of line so they could investigate why he wasn't in the system. He said he was registered to vote, and they thought he might be designated to a different county. Anyhoo...I never heard what happened to his voting rights, because I was too busy pussy-footing around full tables of legal voters to care. It was a full house in that church basement.

Hick passed me at a good clip, and I thought I'd follow him around the corner where he disappeared, because maybe he knew about a secret room with more space. We've never gone together to vote before. However, I soon discovered that Hick had disappeared into the RESTROOM, so I laid my ballot on the top chair of a stack of five, and commenced to voting. There were three of those stand-up voting platforms, but they were in use. No curtains on the back of them, either. It's not like you get any privacy at this polling place. We are herded like cattle into the open room, to sit elbow-to-elbow at tables, ruminating on our choices.

There were two seats all the way across the room, back by where we came in, but I didn't think I could squeeze between all the chairs and round tables between me and them. Besides, the couple who came in after us, with their FIVE KIDS, passed me and headed in that direction. Hick himself came out of the bathroom and squoze into a tight spot at the long table by where I was chair-stack voting.

We finished about the same time, but I was first to shove my ballot (FACE UP) into the scanner. Nobody was manning the scanner, which is unusual for this place. It was self-serve today. Maybe one of the old ladies didn't show up for her unpaid job. Maybe her hair was too blue, and she might have been banned for electioneering.

When we returned our voting ballpoint pens, we were rewarded with a sticker. I slapped mine on, not because I'm some weirdo who wants to wear it all day, but because that little old lady was handing them out with the backing already peeled off! Who does that? Rather than carry a sticky sticker, I slapped it on. I don't know what Hick did with his. Refusing the sticker would have seemed unAmerican!

On the way home, we passed a long driveway, where a man was unloading stuff from a big Gator-like vehicle, and stacking it by his trash. That means the stuff is available for the taking, you know! Of course Hick had his eye on it. I watched as the guy carried a heavy sink and set it down.

"I don't know what I'd do with the sink. But that's a really nice door. When we get home, I'm going to get the truck, and come back for that door!"

That's our Hick.