Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Polling Place

Worked the polling place in Leesburg this evening.

Easy gig. Folks roll up to vote, you shove a Democratic Sample Ballot under their noses. They take it, or they don't. They go inside to vote. They consult your Sample Ballot, or they don't.

The odd, unexpected thing was the joshing and camaraderie among the poll-workers on either side. These folks are friends and neighbors, and party affiliation is more a matter of unaccountable eccentricity than some angry passion. When I got there, the Dem activist I was relieving hugged everybody there, regardless of party affiliation, and went home. By the time my spell was over and my relief had arrived, I'd joined the Old House Owners' Club of Loudoun County, given a Republican poll-worker a recommendation for someone to do some restoration work on his house, and given another GOP worker my email address.

In this collegial atmosphere, any joking is immediately assumed to be friendly. One of the GOP workers asked, in a loud voice, how an intelligent fella like myself came to be associated with a bunch of rascals and good-for-nothings like the Dems. Unprepared for the question, I mumbled something lame about how my parents, good Minnesota Democrats, raised me right. But I filed the thing away, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

It was a cold and windy evening, and the chill began to assert itself in my still-tender hip. I did some of the stretches that they taught me in my Physical Therapy sessions. One of the GOP guys asked me what I was doing, and I launched into my standard story: Osteonecrosis, hip replacement, yadda yadda. Then I expanded on it a bit: I'm so grateful, I said, to have been born when I was, when hip replacements are even possible. Imagine, I expounded, if I'd had this condition in, say, 1930, when I might have been the sole provider for a family of four, finding my hip going painfully south on me: How screwed would I have been then, with primitive medical science, no social security net, no health insurance, absolutely nothing standing between me and painful penury for my family?

Yeah, I guess you'd have been in pretty bad shape, said my interlocutor. Yeah, wow, that would have sucked.

I let a moment pass.

"And that," I said, "is why I'm a Democrat."

No thunderclaps resounded in the sky. Nobody fell to the ground, speaking in tongues. No battlefield conversions.

But I remain quietly proud of my zinger.

It has the added virtue of being absolutely, unarguably true. A humble thing, but mine own.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

me too!

Anonymous said...

Excellent post- and brilliant riposte! My most incisive rejoinders are always the next morning: "what I shoulda said was..."

Anonymous said...

I was a Democrat, but it didn't help, so I moved to Canada.

Even current exchange rates aren't tempting me back.

Anonymous said...

...Plus, I forgot: Nice work, VA Dems, turning the state senate around! Now do something constructive, and keep everything ethical!

Anonymous said...

...Because God gave me a brain and I use it!

None said...

Well done, sir!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful.

bobby lightfoot said...

I'da just called him a doosh and punched him in the cock and slashed his tires and seduced his wife.

You're better.

Unknown said...

Often an angry and frustrated Democrat, I'd like to think a cheerful atmosphere among either/or minds would leave my own open and comfortable. Certainly, I try to accept and respond to every person who comes my way as an individual. And, at the least, I try to match his or her attitude toward me, especially if it feels kind.
Your example was a sound one and may have made one or two people think twice. That's the goal, I think, to make people think carefully why they choose one group after another, because they can choose. It's not "congential."

Anonymous said...

Post your queries related to Hip Replacement at,

http://www.wockhardthospitals.net/general/give_quote.asp

Toll Free
UK: 0-808-234-6343
US / Canada: 1-800-730-6373

Anonymous said...

Did you offer him a soul transplant, too?

Nice rejoinder (and I hope the cold weather doesn't cause so much discomfort next time, too).

Dr Dave said...

Who are all these people? And don't forget to give a top o' the hat to your local friendly precinct organizer.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.