Voter Story

"Odd, where's all the people?" I thought to myself as I parked my car. Oh well.  I had a jump in my step, excited to get in there and vote, only to realize Abby was 10 paces back.  Once she caught up, I triumphantly entered the school looking to do my duty: vote.  I was proud and happy.  Each slowed step down the well lit hallway, drew me ever so closer to that little gymnasium. En route, we passed little running shoes with coats on hangers and little crafts with lots of colours!  It reminded me of when I in grades 1-6 and ever so bitter that I had to give up phys'ed (the best subject of all!) for an entire day so nit-wit adults could vote.  We crossed into the gym and went to station 171 where there was a voter receiving instructions before they headed to mark their ballot.  We approached the station and luckily, there was tape on the ground with print saying, "stand behind yellow line".  With love in my voice and a soft tender word, I gracefully informed Abby she is 6.5" past that line.  She was undermining the entire democratic process and violating the rules.  She immediately drew her foot back and said "oh, sorry!" For her punishment, I opted to bud in front of her, only to hear, "what happened to ladies first?"...once the joke died, I let her back in line ahead of me.  While Abby was receiving detailed instructions on the process to mark an X beside a candidate's name, I was noticing a few X's of my own...I oversaw lists of voters and by 8:30pm, I had realized only a few X's per page: few indeed!  My heart sank and my spirits dwindled.  I had asked the elections lady, "why is it 8:30 and there are hardly any names crossed of your list?"  She said, "because I declared that you can only cast a ballot if you vote for the Green Party!" No, she actually said, "I know, this has not been a good day...people are just not showing up".  I marked my X beside the candidate of choice and left home, of course, with Abby.  I reflected on the way home about eating half my normal dose of pizza and the lack of thankfulness that drives Ontario's apathy in voting as well as their thirst for more, more more at the expense of debt, taxes and more debt. It was good driving 3 minutes to my voting station, and even better to drive home the value of thankfulness for what I have.