I voted today, but I can't say I'm happy about it. It's not the actual voting process that makes me so unhappy (in our small town life there is no waiting and the volunteers are exceedingly friendly) nor is this a commentary on the options available (that would be a totally different and probably much longer post). No, what's making me incredibly unhappy this election season is my phone, and to a lesser extent my front door, and even at times my email. Over the past week we have received anywhere from five to eight political phone calls per day, and in the three weeks leading up to that point we were receiving at least four per day. I could swear that's more phone calls than we generally receive over an entire year. And as if the constant interruptions weren't enough more often than not I'd find myself answering the phone, hands dirty with dinner or wet from laundry, only to be greeted by a robocaller. I can't give a robocaller a piece of my mind (or I guess I can, and in fact did, but it really isn't all that fulfilling).
I joined a do not call list for a reason, and though I realize that these people must be exempt from those parameters, I am livid. Irate. And then I thought it was all over—I'd voted, right? No, they came to the door at five and called three more times between then and the closing of the polls at eight. Now, thankfully, the polls are closed and my phone is quiet. Until it rang at 8:30 and it was CDC taking a poll on the flu vaccine. At least I was nice to that guy.
Calvin went with me to vote today, and we talked about the process throughout. I even held him up so that he could watch me "color in the circles" for "the people I liked" (which, when put that way, makes it sound like a high school prom court vote). When we got home he wrote the above entry in his journal about the experience. Obviously I helped him with spelling, but the sentence structure is completely his own composition, and I'm not sorry he left out the part about coloring in circles.