Da Polls

So, I got to work the polls on election day. First time ever. I remember kids in high school like getting to miss a day of school to do it and I actually thought, wow, I'd rather be in class than do such a totally geeky thing. Duh...

OK, I obviously underestimated the potential for fun at the polls so many years ago. We had a blast!

So at 4:45 in the a.m. (hello! 4:45 comes twice in a day? whoda thunk it?) Anyway at 4:45 in the a.m. my dad comes knocking on my door. We were in the same polling location, the two of us plus Anne. Yeah, can you imagine?

Anyway, so apparently you are not aloud to discuss politics at the polls lest you earn yourself a class A misdemeanor. This was going to be a challenge for all involved parties. First of all my dad is a die hard conservative and...a Kensinger, so he will argue with you till your screaming UNCLE!!! And Anne? Well what can I say about Anne. Dear, dear Anne. Basically Anne doesn't care what anyone thinks about her. If she ends up in the pokey with a class A misdemeanor it was well worth it to have potentially brought someone into the light. I LOVE that about her. Though when she starts it takes me back to my smoke filled childhood and I begin to get palpitations.

Ok, so Anne and I were at our table with our 2 liberal counterparts, one of whom worked for the Teamsters for 30 years and the other who told us during introductions that she was an animal rights activist. Oh, this was going to be a fun, fun day.

Well, me and my liberal hit it off immediately. We talked and talked and talked. At least until 2:30. So I checked the time, yeah, it was only like 8:00. So we decided to pass the time playing games. We drew up a scoreboard with every one's names on it and got started by seeing who could guess the occupations of our "customers". Then we estimated bricks on the wall in front of us. We played "name 5" for at least 4 hours. Then we had 1 on 1 who could name the most whatever: countries (I won with a total of 40 in 2 minutes), presidents, sports teams, and so on.

Oh, so Anne's lib (you remember, the animal activist) was a hoot. Anne had been talking about her pet rabbit and how she should have brought it along and I mentioned that her rabbit was named George, after George Bush, and do you know Miss Animal Rights Activist said it was a good thing Anne didn't have that rabbit with her cause she'd sneak out back with it and snap it's little neck!!!!

The Polls, it was great. It was exhausting. And by 6 we were ready to go BUT! The polls must be closed properly. And the proper way it must be done is for the Inspector to go out front and shout "Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The Polls Are Now Closed!" Well, guess what? They let me do it! Whoo Hoo!!

Okay, so after 13 hours and 84 voters we were completely zoned out! But wait! Jackie won! We have to go to her victory party! Bear with me here, only a little longer to go.

So me and my dad have this curse. The Kensinger curse. We don't ever want the party to end. Sort of like this blog post. So after following our libs to the county city building in downtown South Bend we decided to head to Elkhart for the par-tay. Well, it was supposed to be at this particular restaurant but we didn't know how to get there so we swung by Jackie's HQ and saw that the "open" sign was on so we thought we'd stop in there. We go in on a victory high shouting "JACKIEEEEE" All of a sudden this older lady comes rushing out of this little office area with her finger over her mouth. Seems Jackie's campaign manager Matt Kirby was still on the phone getting results. And the lady who came out to hush us? Jackie's mom! Then Jackie came out and we got to congratulate her and her husband. Man, it was thrilling! And this was just the primary? Wow, they might want to pull the plug on that "open" sign come November cause me and my dad will be hootin' even more then!!!