Well, as you can see from the picture, I have officially experienced my first voting polls. *Thunderous applause echoes throughout the room.* Yes, I have made my first foray into the black hole of the federal government, from which there is no turning back. So, having reached so important a stage of my life, I thought I would share my experience with anyone who cares to know...The first thing my thought landed upon was the setting for the polls: a church. In this certain precinct of Beavercreek, Ohio, voters step into a church (which may be a rare occasion) and decide who they want to run their country... I don't know, it provoked my thought. Anyway, the second thing I noticed, was the disproportionate amount of tables to queues of people. Four precincts meet at this particular place, evidently one of which had any turnout. Four precincts. One line. Guess which one had the line? That's right. So not only is it my first time voting- it is also my first experience thinking about rain, polling stations, Calculus, play practice, voter ID, lines, and grumpy old women behind tables all at the same time while being helpless to speed up said time.
Fast-forward a half hour (because nothing interesting ever happens while standing still). I arrive at The Table, which is a proper noun due to the high degree of power saturating the air surrounding it. Three volunteers look at me simultaneously. The first, a stocky man with a crew cut, asks me my name. I respond with a simple "Andrew Hoke", not realizing the consequences of these two words. I immediately realized why I had stood in line for so long. Crew Cut hefts a 52-inch binder in front of him, and begins paging through it, at most two pages at a time. This notebook contained the name of every homo sapien born since Noah's Flood, and Mr. Cut can't seem to summon the necessary energy to widen the gap between his fingers to grasp more pages at once. Fortunately, all good things must come to an end, and the Crew finally got to the page with my name. After studying it for a few minutes, just to rub it in, he indicated a rectangular box. "Sign here," he said in a voice containing less emotion than that in a stuffed animal. I quickly obeyed and moved on to the remaining volunteers.
Due to space and time constraints, The Adventures With Grandma Moses and College Graduate Wanna-Be will not be duscussed here. Know only that I experienced my most pleasant moments with Mr. Cut.
All humor aside, the overall experience wasn't so bad. Apart from a long wait, a cranky card-slider thingy, and forgetting to retrieve my driver's license, I actually enjoyed the chance to have a say in what my country does. To those in totalitarian or dictatorial societies, the United States must indeed be the beacon of hope and freedom that it is renowned to be. I would hope that anyone with this freedom would not take it for granted, and would fulfill the duties of an American citizen.
