November 4, 2008

5 Degrees of Long Line Wackadoodle


Hour 1: The Pro
I say to the people around me, "I've voted here before at least 6 times. It never takes more than 45 minutes. PLUS, we're here before the lunchtime push. This'll take an hour tops."

Hour 2: Denial
Upon seeing a disheveled red-eyed UPS truck driver emerging from the building shouting "6 HOURS! 6 HOURS!" My patient-energetic heart simply ignores Mr. UPS man. How can MY little precinct take 6 hours. I also ignore the Channel 13 News Team asking people how long they have been in line, in favor of discreetly listening to my ipod.
If I had a time machine Id watch this.

Hour 3: The Insanity of Hope

At this point, I'm in the elementary school with what felt like 2000 people and children and their grandparents cram/jammed in a little hallway. I start texting my friends for encouragement, but find that my frustration manifests in ugly ways. The smell of crayons and sweat and glue and rain all meld together. I wonder why my friends were in and out of the polling office in 2 hours or 2 minutes and I have been put in the purgatory mother of all hellish waiting lines. Hallway after hallway of people standing and people are texting me about HOPE. Wha....!!

Hour 4: Leslie vs. the Volcano.
If you have walked to the edge of a precipice, you mas well dive in. Me and the members of the line are no longer voters. We are a tribe. When one becomes tired, we find them a chair. If one becomes hungry we get them water. And if one tries to LEAVE, we remind them not of the election..but of how FAR we have come; how many hallways traversed, how many hallways unseen.

Hour 5: The Prize
When passing through the final gates, me and my tribe were rewarded with a small 2-inch trophy. Any other election this would be trivial, minutiae even but today it's an honor bestowed as a right of passage. The "I VOTED City of Norfolk" Award. I returned back into the sunlight to show off my badge to the "fresh meat" outside. I will have it laminated tomorrow.

I have never stood in line this long for anything. Not registering for class, a concert line, or even the COOLEST ride at any amusement park. It was an excercise in patience and I will sleep well knowing I did my part. Now I can complain.

8 comments:

Templeton said...

Four minutes for us. Leslie, you should be a writer, I always dig your posts.

Carol Ann said...

Huzzah! Please know, that the peoples of New Jersey, specifically the ones who work in my hospital, did know of your journey today. And though my office, being of lead walls for it was once beholden to the department of radiology, and therefore rendering me unable to correspond with you textually...I knew you would triumph. Huzzah, Paxton. Huzzah, indeed.

Anonymous said...

wow...what a line!

Leslie said...

I read some article about voting issues and the level of reform being needed citing this election would be the "model" case. (Model case if it failed.)

To reference said article from memory---

It's like that scene in Jaws. The residents of Amity Island just keep swimming even though Brody realizes there is a huge shark.

"We're going to need a bigger boat."

The boat in my case being more machines to handle the flood of new voters. I guess no one bothered to listen to the Chief's warnings.

Leslie said...

OH! and Thanks T for the writing kudos! This blog serves as my "rough draft" for what may hopefully become my Great American Novella. If I could just get those pesky conclusions in the can. :)

and Thanks G - for the textual support! By the time grandkids come into the picture - I'm hoping this will be one of those "My friend from VA waited 9 hours to vote, in the snow, without shoes, with only a small pencil and a scroll..."

Carol Ann said...

well if we're going to delve into fiction, then please tell your kin that I had to pull some kung-fu moves on the black panther party to get to the booth. and maybe that they were so impressed with said moves that they asked me to join them? cool.

Anonymous said...

Was the Black Panther thing in NJ? My coworker mentioned something about it, but had no details other than that Fox News jumped right on that...lol.

Leslie said...

Black Panthers? What's that about?
I'm all about the peace. LOL