UD just whispered these words to Mr UD as he fell asleep.
Mr UD insists that UD vote, even in the primaries, so after she taught her classes he picked her up at Grosvenor Metro and they drove to Holy Cross Elementary School (they usually vote at UD‘s elementary school, Garrett Park, but the main building’s being demolished and a new building’s going up).
As they walked from the car to the polling place, UD read, loudly, in the voice of Major “King” Kong, instructions on how to vote.
The instructions were in the booklet Mr UD had just handed her. He’d written UD‘s Polish name –Madzia – on the top of the first page of the booklet.
Inside the booklet were mock ballots on which he’d carefully marked every person UD was to vote for. Aside from Barbara Mikulski and Chris Van Hollen, UD recognized no name in the booklet. (Check out picture # 5 on Van Hollen’s website. That’s my neighbor, John Wilpers; his daughter Terry is just about my oldest friend. I wrote about John here.) As is always the case when Mr UD forces her to vote in primaries, she simply does what she is told.
There were very few people in the polling place, most of them fellow Garrett Parkers. UD was handed a computer card and escorted to a little booth, where she quickly touch-screened all the names Mr UD told her to enter. The whole thing took twenty seconds.
Mr UD took forever. “I was rereading my ballot,” he said, “to make sure everything was right.”
On the way back to the car, UD railed – again loudly – about the travesty of making Americans vote at a religious school.
LAST TIME I LOOKED THIS WAS A DEMOCRACY. ANYBODY HERE HEARD OF SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE? ANYBODY? ON OUR WAY INTO THE BUILDING WE WALKED DIRECTLY UNDER AN ENORMOUS CROSS. YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT HAS NO EFFECT ON PEOPLE? LAST TIME I LOOKED…
The Major Kong thing, the loud railing church and state thing — These are the ways UD makes unpalatable events palatable.
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Update:
LOOOOOK!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, Phil.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:12AM
So funny. And resonates strongly with some of my own family dynamics. Embarrassed to say how many elections I’ve missed. Now I do vote — even in primaries! — but I depend on the prodding and guiding of my familial civic obsessives.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:16AM
Civic obsessives. Does that ever say it, Erin.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:17PM
Within the economics departments at certain universities, there is a famous but probably apocryphal story about two world-class economists who run into each other at the voting booth.
“What are you doing here?” one asks.
“My wife made me come,” the other says.
The first economist gives a confirming nod. “The same.”
After a mutually sheepish moment, one of them hatches a plan: “If you promise never to tell anyone you saw me here, I’ll never tell anyone I saw you.” They shake hands, finish their polling business and scurry off.
source: Freakonomics
🙂
September 15th, 2010 at 11:44PM
Wonderful, Andrzej!
September 16th, 2010 at 7:21AM
If you voted here, you would not notice the crosses as you ran the gauntlet of campaign workers illegally harassing voters even inside the polling places.
January 22nd, 2011 at 5:24AM
[…] Church in Garrett Park. UD was at Holy Cross Elementary School (adjacent to the church) recently, to vote; she has also sung at some funerals in the church with fellow Garrett Park […]