Election Day Drama

I let the front door slam behind me as I huffed out to my car, teeth unbrushed, glasses on, and essentially still wearing my pajamas. I did not want to be up this early and I knew the place I was going was not going to make me feel any better.

There is always a line at the Lake Bluff post office, and this morning was needlessly no exception. The patient man in front of me stood in line quietly while we listened to the postal workers chatting about their weekend in the back, either unaware, or uncaring that we were waiting. Eventually, they made their way to the counter and I shoved my Colorado ballot on the ledge where I was told it would cost me $20 to arrive on time.

My ballot had already started my blood boiling that morning when I researched judge's records. I wanted a simple, straightforward voter's guide pertaining to judges, but I was unable to find one. Instead, I read individual case after case, feeling like a first grader reading car manual instructions on how to change the oil.

Annoyed at myself for not realizing the ballots had to be in before 7 pm on election day, and not just postmarked by election day, I swiped my credit card and marched out to my car. Slamming the door, I rolled through a stop sign, bemoaning that some rules really did apply to me and I could not get an exception, and I began to fantasize about living all alone in a land without a government or the need for one, when I suddenly remembered the picture Jordan showed me a few days before.

It was a picture of a dark skinned Tunisian woman, her crisp red veil bright against her long blue dress. She stood proudly next to our friend Luke, who lives in Tunisia, and is helping the country implement democracy. When Jordan visited Luke last spring, he learned that the elections had been postponed several times, because of instability in the country. You know, candidates being murdered and stuff. And last week, the Tunisian people finally got to vote. For the first time. In like fifty years. Luke said that in her excitement at having just voted, the woman asked to take a picture with him. And then she kissed him. Because she was so thrilled to be voting in an election.

I bet the Tunisian woman brushed her teeth that morning, and got out of her pajamas, and briefly considered whether the threat of terrorist activity was enough to keep her from going to the polls. I bet she would have cheerfully waited in line at the Lake Bluff post office. She surely would have researched the judges sooner than the morning before her ballot was due. And she probably would have thought that $20 was a small price to pay for the privilege of voting.