Peggy, the poll coordinator for this location was also my mom’s Avon lady. Obviously she had been a pollworker since Lincoln was elected into office. She made sure to call me way back in August to assign me the task of bringing doughnuts for the Election Day potluck. I’m Homer Simpson when it comes to a box of doughnuts. Doughnuts gave me hope. Sweet, sweet hope. I dressed in layers of alternating tank tops, a fitted lilac sweater, jeans, and a grey sweatshirt over all of that. I was still cold. My election training packet was at the bottom of my cargo compartment where it lay there since I received it a month ago. I dug it out from beneath my dry cleaning and made the trek to Starbucks for my life blood.
Ooohhh.... FYI - Starbucks has a tasty signature wintery cocoa called a “Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.” I initially bought it on an employee’s recommendation and now I’m hooked.
I placed my order and upped it with a shot of espresso. The clerk saw my election poll button nestled between my boobs. After I had paid, he repeated my order, then said, “You have one shot, would you like another one?” “Sure!” I said. Wow, this button was magical! Or maybe it was the sweater? Or the fact that I looked like a soggy, wet, puffy-eyed mess and he took pity on me. Whatever – I was going to be soooooo high!
Liquid crack in hand, I swooped by Winchell’s for a quick dozen (the button didn’t work there, nor did a push for my 10% AAA discount), then headed to the polling spot. It was in a private home in a residential area close to where I grew up. In fact this was the first place I ever voted. My sentiment turned to shock when I saw the line of people standing outside in the rain. It was 6:30 exactly. The polls didn’t open until 7:00. Peggy the coordinator and the Old Bones squad were still struggling to put up signs. I walked into the icy garage and spoke aloud.... apparently to no one in particular. They ignored me. I set the doughnuts on the back counter next to a store-bought pound cake. Diane, a quiet elderly Samoan lady introduced herself to me and then pointed out who was who, Pearl, Annie... their names immediately went in one ear and out the other. Thank goodness for nametags.
Peggy looked like a trailer trash version of the Wicked Witch of the West. She smoked Pall Malls and had black stubbly whiskers poking up from the tip of her nose. Her wiry thin grey hair was twisted in a fancy side ponytail, leaving a trail of brittle strands everywhere she perched. All five of the elderly women were cranky, on the verge of snapping. I could feel what little youth I had being sucked out through my pores. I seated myself at the table handing out ballots since Peggy couldn’t figure out where to place me. She made the announcement at 7:00AM exactly:
“The polls are now open.” I let out a little cheer. They all remained silent.
People streamed in steadily. Ten minutes into the voting, I mistakenly tore a ballot from the pad – leaving the receipt attached to the top of the pad. Oops. I handed it to a voter without looking to see if there was an open booth. Oops again. It was crowded and the booths were smashed together. “It will be one moment, sorry about that,” I said to the man. Pearl, Offended Senior #1 to my left snatched the ballot from the voter’s hand, and then slammed the pad down on the table. “You have to tear this off here at the top and you can’t hand him the ballot until there’s an open booth.” I looked around and said, “I apologize. I neglected to see if there was an open booth before I handed him the ballot.”
Pearl lost her fucking mind. "I’m not going to take this!” she screamed. I froze. Peggy came rushing over to us. Pearl ratted me out. I repeated to her exactly what I had said to Pearl in an even, monotone voice, “I neglected to see if there was an open booth before I handed him the ballot.” Pearl said, “I’m not going to stand for this type of attitude!” I looked at Peggy. “What attitude am I having? That was all I said to her!” I was trying to restrain myself from laughing. I couldn’t. It didn’t help the situation. Peggy said, “You two need to shake on it.” I thrust my hand in Pearl’s face. She recoiled as if I had pointed shit on a stick at her. “I’m not shaking her hand! Don’t you touch me!” she yelled.
All this time, I’m steadily handing out ballots to concerned voters. That was one thing I learned in the election class: VOTING NEVER STOPS. Even if you have a delusional ol’ blue-hair with a mental breakdown casting your ballot, VOTING NEVER STOPS.
She continued yelling about me. “I don’t have to take this kind of behavior, Peggy. This is my house!” I looked down at her. “Aww, you want a hug?” Her eyes widened as I leaned in. “Wanna hug it out?” Pearl scooted back to the edge of her seat. “Don’t you touch me! No I don’t want no hug! This is my house and I won’t be treated this way!”
“Oh lord woman, then what?” I looked at Peggy. “You want to send me home? What, you’re going to fire me?” I outstretched my arms dramatically and hit on my chest, reminiscent of Denzell Washington in Training Day. My next line should have been, “KING KONG AIN’T GOT NUTHIN ON ME!” Peggy ran away. People stared.
I continued greeting voters and passing out ballots. Pearl scooted her chair to the left and froze me out. Christ, it wasn’t even 7:30 yet. The torrential rain swept my neighbors in. People I had seen in passing, but haven’t spoken to in years. Mr. Wooldridge showed up shuffling himself along with his cane. I smiled when I saw him. “Where have you been all my life?” he asked me. “Working,” I said, laughing. He updated me on his sons Randy and Eric. Hmm, to this day he probably still doesn’t know about the massive NYE’s party we had in his house right after I graduated high school. Good times.
I became the whirlwind poll helper. I eventually was assigned to a back table assisting provisional voters, but the duration of my stay was on the line handing out ballots and helping voters place them in the machine. I instructed voters on the Ink-a-Vote machine and monitored the line. I was everywhere and I didn’t mind it at all. I would rather be bouncing around instead of being cooped up any day. The clerks called out to me each time someone needed help. “You’re a people person, aren’t you?” said Annie. I had never thought about it before. I was just working. My energy stayed up for most of the morning. I recognized a lot of faces and they seemed genuinely happy to see me.
I sent out a text to everyone reminding them to get their asses out and vote. I heard from Ferd first: Rasta don’t work for da c.i.a.
A young man in a button-down shirt and tie came through. We made eye contact. “Sup movie star?” he said. I laughed. “How you doin Boo Boo!” He turned pink. I bet he hadn’t been called that in years. It was Miguel – a dirty little punk kid I had known since he was in kindergarten. He used to stay in the streets on his bike. Miguel cleaned up well and was now into real estate. “Look at you with your big boy clothes on!” I said. He continued to blush and told me about the economy and how things were going, then handed me his business card. I genuinely was impressed and told him so.
Mr. Bryant rolled through and didn’t speak. As usual. But his wife did. She hugged me and chatted my ear off. A few minutes later, Cinnamon, her oldest daughter came through with her two little girls. Cinnamon is a few years older than me and has four kids. Damn. “When are you going to start having some?” she said. “Ahhhhhhh, I don’t know... but you’ve got enough for the both of us!” She grinned, dragging her cranky toddlers away.
My dad was steadily texting me to receive updates about the length if the line. Things died down around 10:00. He came just before lunchtime. I was tied up assisting with a provisional ballot so I wasn’t able to mess with him. He hollered before he left, “OK take it easy my (fill-in-the-blank-with-the-childhood-nickname-he’s-called-me-since-I-was-born)!” I groaned. He was embarrassing me on purpose, laughing all the way out to his truck.
I munched on a doughnut with sprinkles in between breaks. Ug. I haven’t eaten this much crap in a long time. Sugar shock was eminent. Let’s see, I topped off my dietary intake list with a Grande hot chocolate with espresso for breakfast, doughnut with sprinkles and a bowl of potato chips. I rifled through the rest of the junk on the counter. One of the women had made a HUGE 12 x 12 Tupperware container full of..... tuna? Chicken salad? Every time I asked someone, they gave me a different answer. If they couldn’t figure it out, I wasn’t going to try to either. It had mayo in it and had been sitting out for six hours now. I passed.
Peggy sat huddled in the corner with a paper plate and a stack of stale Ritz crackers. I watched as she shoveled the mayo mash into her nicotine stained mouth. I finally deducted that it was cat food. She purred gently and licked the plate clean then proceeded to preen herself by smoothing her whiskers with the back of her fuzzy hand.
More neighbors. More ballots. Just over 300 votes had been cast by the early afternoon. For some reason, the voting machine started making a strange “whirring” noise. Peggy announced that the machine was making a weird noise then walked away without doing anything about it. Moments later, the machine jammed. A man went to put his ballot in and the feeder wouldn’t take it. The control screen said, “NO READER”, whatever the hell that meant. The poll workers became flustered. I tried trouble shooting to no avail. I checked the connections, the plugs, not much else. It was a very simple machine with one button – the power switch. I asked Peggy if there was an instruction manual. She threw her hands up in the air, said, “I don’t know where anything is!” and walked away.
Ookay.
But alas, VOTING NEVER STOPS. The voters were becoming suspicious. I was prepped for emergency and instructed Pearl to take the ballots and put them in the bottom security bin where the absentee ballots and mail-in ballots were deposited.
“Peggy is there a phone number that I can call to get some tech support?” I said. She became indignant. “I tried calling for the audio machine and no one picked up the phone.”
“So, you have a phone number?”
“I tried calling and calling but I couldn’t get through. There was no one there. It just rang.”
“Umm, can you give me the phone number that you called?”
“I don’t know what good its going to do.” She walked away again.
This woman was insane. I punched buttons on the touch screen then called Beans. She was working the polls too. I figured she’d have a quick fix for me. Her phone rang and went to voicemail. I sent her an emergency text then leaned over to the audio voting machine that was butted up against the dryer and dialed the 1-877 phone number on the sticker. A clerk immediately answered. I told her what happened and she put a technician on the phone. It took all of 30 seconds for Eli the tech to instruct me to press the magic button and turn the machine off and on. You would have thought that little black button controlled all of mankind and our existence as we know it.
Peggy re-appeared once I started talking on to Eli. “Tell him I’m the inspector,” she said. “Give him my name.” I ignored her and began repeating his instructions aloud as if I was a surgeon prepping for a major transplant. “OK Eli, I’m bending down, I see there’s a side panel with two connectors. OK, there’s the off and on switch, I should press that? What will happen to the votes, the numbers won’t be erased right?” Eli assured me everything would remain as is.
Peggy hovered, ready to throw her body over the machine at a moment’s notice. I did not want to be the one to flick that switch but dammit, there were no other switches to flick. I pressed the button. The control screen went dark. I sucked in a mouthful of air and turned it back on. Nothing happened. Crap. I waited. A few moments later it finally rebooted. I exhaled. It took ten minutes of my staring at a re-boot screen for it return to working order. I cheered. No one said anything, not even a thank you. Whatever. I saved the election, tucked my superhero cape back into my superhero stretchy pants and carried on with the ballot flinging.
I put the dinner text to my dad: “Need food...feeling weak. Help.” Mom called me back. The easiest thing to pick up was a chicken sandwich from McDonalds. My father is notorious for messing up food orders so I figured a simple request would work. Things moved along smoothly right up until 5:00 when the people began to trickle in again. Dad pulled up out front and called me. I ran out of the polling area into the street, screaming, “ARRGG! TAKE ME WITH YOU!” and waving my arms around wildly. My mom and dad laughed. I grabbed the bag and started inhaling the McDonald’s fries. Ug, the salt clashed with my sugar intake and made me dizzy. I was out of breath and tried to quickly tell them about all of the drama that had happened before making my way back into the pit.
I sat at the provisional table in the back and ripped open the bag. Chicken nuggets? It wasn’t a chicken sandwich, but close enough. I scarfed the junk food down, trying not to think about it eating away at my insides. Peggy magically appeared in a green mist. She glanced at the table. “Mc Donalds!?!?’ she said with disgust. I looked at the red package next to my sweet and sour sauce packet. “Cigarettes?!!?”, I said, equally disgusted. She grabbed her box and hissed. As my punishment for defending myself and not taking any shit from these women, AKA, “being a smartass” Peggy informed me that I was going to be the one responsible for the ballot count at the end of the night. WTF!!?!? What the hell will everyone else be doing while I’m slashing tally marks into my forearm? I thought. She probably figured I would refuse. Ha. I told her OK enthusiastically. Bring your worst, you cackly hag. I was there to be part of history. It would be an honor to sign my name on the records sheet.
A guy came in with his little boy. I overheard him asking Peggy if he could take a picture of the voting area. “No!” she snapped with no other explanation. He politely said, “OK, thank you.” The guy moved down the line to receive his ballot. “What did you ask her?” I said. He replied, “I just wanted to know if I could take a picture, I mean this is such a historical time,” he started to get choked up. I told him not to worry and to come back to me one he was done voting. He hesitated and said he would. What was that broad’s issue? People had been coming in taking photos periodically throughout the day, the only difference was they just did it. They didn’t ask her for shit. There was no law saying you couldn’t take a photo. He returned his ballot to me and proudly held his son in his arms. They poised over the machine with ballot in hand. I snapped. The ballot dropped in and was counted. the man stood smiling with his son being adorned with "I voted" stickers. He thanked me profusely and left. Add 'granting wishes' to my list of dreams.
The last two hours were horribly slow. Everyone expected a huge rush of people, but virtually no one came in. I recognized another guy I went to high school with. Actually, Jason was my classroom T.A. for History and his little brother Jared and I used to have classes together. I asked how Jared was. Apparently he’s into music production and doing really well. Some of his stuff was used on the new Madden game and he’s working with a couple of hip hop artists. As Jason was walking out he said, “That was you in that commercial, wasn’t it!” I laughed and said yeah. “I knew it!” he yelled. “I knew that was you, I told all them fools!” We talked for a bit more before he took off.
We closed our site down at exactly 8:00PM. At 8:03, I heard fireworks going off and people screaming in the streets. They cheered and yelled. I knew it was over. I hadn’t heard any updates but I knew Obama had taken at least the unofficial lead. The text messages on my phone started rolling in.
From Mich: Obamba is in the white fools! (La Obamba apparently...)
I text my Dad, telling him that I was counting the ballots and ready to quit.
From Pops: No no all of them count regardless they can still try something! Thank you, Conspiracy King.
I continued to count and pack up everything. The final tally was 655 ballots were being submitted. We were 5 over, but finally finished just after 9:30. Two of the women thanked me for all my help and said they had never gotten out so early before. They hoped I would be back again. Pearl and Peggy disappeared without speaking to me. Eh.
I drove to my parent’s house and watched to re-play of the speeches. They were incredibly enthusiastic. I asked Mom, “Did you think you’d ever see this?” "Yeah,” she replied. Totally un-phased. Good ol’ optimistic mama.
Coverage continued on all of the channels. Recaps, counting, endless news stories. It was a media mindfuck. Everyone came out to vote at our tiny residential polling place – the old, young, first time voters, people who couldn’t even speak English. All one woman kept chanting was, “Obama! Obama! I wan one vote, Obama!” I helped her stick the ballot into the Ink-A-Vote machine. She used the pen to make one selection and removed her ballot. I asked her, “No propositions? You don’t want to make any other selections?” She grabbed my hand and dragged me to the recorder. “Obama! I wan Obama. Obama!” She fed the ballot through the feeder. “Es good? Obama?” I nodded and said, “Yes, Obama.” Grinning, she walked out with her “I Voted sticker” on her sweater, shaking her hands to the sky. “Obama! Yes Obama!” I was in awe. There suddenly seemed to be renewed hope. Change. Hope. Change.
My Dad’s text message to me earlier in the evening summed it up: Obama is over the top!! In my life time!
Damn right Pops. He did it. We did it.
