Voting. Hillmomba Style.

I abandoned The Pony this afternoon to selfishly take myself to the voting booth. Don't you worry about The Pony. He was happily ensconced at Academic Team practice, and his grandma picked him up. The #1 son only had to stay after school until 4:00, working on his robot, so I waited on him.

It is truly a pain in the behind for me to vote. My polling place is even further in the middle of nowhere than the Mansion. I had to leave Newmentia, drive out past the road to my Mansion, and vote in a church with a parking lot that holds 12 cars on a good day, with subcompacts who like to get cozy. Did I mention that it is a 30 minute drive from Newmentia to Mansion? Then we had to drive back to town and load up The Pony after voting. I don't like my mom driving on that two-lane blacktop county road after dark or after work. That's when the crazy tailgaters come out. So she only had to bring The Pony from Basementia to Sonic.

Those ladies who run the polling church always piss me off. Two years in a row, they did not have me on their rolls, even though I have lived in the Mansion for 12 years. Today, the hag at my sign-in book was busy know-it-alling to a poor unlisted voter who was being assisted elsewhere by another. "You have to vote in Basementialand. That's where you're registered. I don't care if you've been living with your sister for the past year. That's where you're registered." Oh, the irony. I think. I'm not really sure what irony is, though earlier in the week I thought it was when a dude whose wife allegedly manslaughtered someone made a comment that "Murderers live among us" in reference to the recent release of an old woman who served 50 years for killing her husband. But what do I know about irony? I don't even understand it with dictionary.com. But I DID wish that I could have voted in that unregistered gal's place in Basementialand, and she could have voted in my place at the far-out polling church.

Old Hag finally turned her attention to me, reached out her greedy hand for my checkbook with ID, then proceeded to answer a text on her cell phone. She absentmindedly turned the book around for me to sign, then had a conniption when I started writing my name. "NO! NO! Only RED ink!!!" Well then. Perhaps she should have forked over that red pen when she turned the book around. She then informed me that her son was texting her to say that they had over 300 voters so far in Basementialand (would the connections never cease), and that churchpoll had already voted more than 600. Like I cared. I just wanted to get out of there and retrieve my Pony. And a Sonic Diet Coke with Lime.

I was passed on down the line like an unpopular independent at a frat party, and had a paper ballot and a capless marker foisted upon me by another old crone who was hoarding the I VOTED stickers. So much for modern conveniences, the six electronic voting booths only 50% full. Just as well. I wouldn't want a malfunction to befall me. I sat at a big round table with an unknown fella, marked both sides of my ballot, and fed it to the hungry, hungry ballot-sucker.

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?