My Civic Duty

Like so many other Americans today, I readied myself to join the huddled masses waiting to sound off at the polls. I told Carter I was going to vote and he was curious what this whole "voting" thing was all about. I tried my best to explain it to him in my best four-year-old-friendly terms, but he still seemed confused. I realized I wasn't going to clear up this issue for him on the 2-minute drive to Umma's house, so I said "ok, let's take our own vote. Raise your hand if you want to go to Umma's house." Carter and I raised our hands, Bella looked at us like we were crazy. "Ok, there you go, 2 people voted to go to Umma's house and that's most of us, so we're going to Umma's house." (wild applause ensued). I said "See, Carter, you just voted." He nodded his head - I think he got the general gist of things.

I dropped them off and went to vote. There were three lines: A-E, F-L, and M-Z. Seriously? M-Z??? Do we have no idea of how to count letters??? Having the severe misfortune of a T last name, I was stuck in the line that wound all the way around the room and snaked back around again. In the meantime, the A-E line was completely empty, so they started pulling the "F" people from the almost equally as short F-L line. Meanwhile, I waited, and I waited and I WAITED, until finally it was my turn. I took my ballot, filled it out, dropped it in the box and got my little I Voted sticker and was on my way.

Then it was on to Starbucks for my free coffee, of course.

After doing my grocery shopping, I went to pick up Carter and Bella. When we got in the car, I pointed my sticker out to Carter. "Where's mine?" he asked. "Remember earlier in the car when I voted?" I told him he could have mine, but when he's 18 he can go vote for real and get his own sticker. "If I vote twice, can I have TWO stickers???"

"Sure. Something like that." We'll cross that bridge some other time.