Where’s your sticker?

So today is Election Day, the day when every good legal US citizen marches down to their local school gymnasium, library, or fire house and does their civic duty by deciding who the leaders of our country will be for the next 4-6 years. I love the voting process. My dad used to say that if you didn’t vote, you didn’t have the right to complain when things went wrong. So every time there is an election (not just presidential) I cast my vote.

But this year I was a little nervous. On the news this morning all they did was talk about the long lines at the polling places, some of them up to 3 hours. Now as much as I love my country waiting in line for three hours didn’t seem like a great use of my time. So I figured I would wake up early, head to my polling place, and if the wait was too long I would head into work early and just take a long lunch to come back and vote. Sounds reasonable, right?

Well, I did get to work early today, but that is only because when I showed up at my polling place there were 9 election judges and me. I WAS THE ONLY ONE THERE VOTING!!! Sure it was nice to not have to wait but come on, where are all the people in my precinct? Where are the long lines? What about the record voter turnout? I didn’t even feel the magic of participating in the greatest right a citizen has because I felt alone.

So a little saddened I slowly wandered back to my car, wondering what I was going to do with myself for the next hour when I remembered that I could do whatever I wanted because I was in fact an American. So with my spirits lifted I headed to Panera* for a four cheese egg soufflé and an iced team, went into work and happily went about my day.

But I encourage all of you, no matter who you are voting for, to go out and vote. Because how else are you supposed to prove to the Starbucks Barista that you have earned that free cup of coffee?

~The Office Scribe

* I will be getting my free cup-of-joe on my way home from work so I am all caffeinated for trivia night at my local bar…