Election Day. Wow. Look at the ballots, people! One way or another, whoever gets voted in, we are all part of history in the making here! I don't want to hear you can't get excited about any of the candidates. You need to GET excited because one of them will be leading our country very soon. And, yes, that affects you and me and every one else in the country and in this world. Choices will be made on the budgets, on health care, on the economy, and in war. You should have a say in who is going to squander your money and fight wars no one wants.
Since I vote, I have every right to bitch when things don't go my way. My vote counts; my opinion matters. As a home owner, suddenly I'm aware of tax levies and how they affect me personally. It's really quite a responsibility to walk into a voting booth and vote on what you believe to be right and good for the community. It's a responsibility, an honor, a privilege. So, if you haven't had voting in your state yet, make sure you get out and VOTE when your day comes.
Ok, off of my soapbox.
The only downside to voting is the pollsters. I just don't know about them. I resent them running after me to tell me to vote for Joe Smith or Sally Jones or whomever. If I don't know who I'm voting for when I pull up to the polling facility then shame on me. They yell and shout and try to give you handouts that you're not allowed to walk into the polls with anyway! You need to get a tag team going - Ron goes one way to try to draw the crowd of pollsters away while I have a breakaway to the door! Then I need to sneak back in to distract the mob while Ron makes a getaway. We almost have it down to a science!
Anyway, this election, Ron was smart and went to vote earlier in the day when the lines were down and the weather hadn't gotten too bad yet. By the time I got off of work, the ice storm had hit and hit hard.
I had to break the ice that was covering my car to just get in the car. Brother Jim experienced the same ice storm the next morning. The pictures are courtesy of Jim, of him trying to get into his vehicle! This one is how his entire vehicle was sheathed in ice. You sometimes have to break your way into the car!
And below, once you get in, you turn on your front and rear defrosters full blast to help melt some of the ice from the inside of the windshield. That will loosen all of the ice on the windshield and in a perfect day, you can "break" the ice and it will come off in big sheets. On not so perfect days, you will scrape and scrape and scrape to get that crap off. It's ugly.
So that is what I was faced with when I left my office. Follow that with a harrowing drive home due to the slick roads and the freezing rain and hail and high winds. My poor little Honda was getting blown all over the place. It was really hard to keep the car on the road.
In spite of that, I went directly to the polls. I took my umbrella (which in hindsight was not so good of an idea) and tried to walk across a parking lot of sheer ice to get into the building. Picture me, inside out umbrella acting like a sail, and literally being blown across the icy lot. That is some dedication to go vote! The up side to all of this is that for the first time in my voting life, there was not ONE pollster standing out there! Wimps!
So, my voice was heard. I was soaked, I was cold and I was tired. But at least someone heard my voice.
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