I had to be to the polling location at 6:00 a.m. today. It was dark. Very dark. And rainy. I’d never been to the location before, and only had the vaguest of Google map directions, so I did the only reasonable thing and stopped where there were several deputy sheriffs coming off duty and busted out the Southern accent to ask for help. It worked; it always does. I was also sure to call out, “Be sure to vote today, y’all!” Y’all.

I worked with RaDene from 8:30 a.m-1:00 p.m. on Friday at the Courthouse and we made an excellent team. We didn’t know we’d be at the same polling location today and she sought me out when she saw me and excitedly asked if I already had a pollbook worker. I said no and she asked if we could be a team. I excitedly said YES, PLEASE! This is how RaDene and I conducted business today:

The little sign says, “Voter please state your name to the poll worker,” which is all fine and good until I have to say for the seventeen-ELEVENTIETHOUSANDIETH TIME, “Yes, sir, I actually need you to state your address.” Maybe I’ve mentioned that already.

This is how my wardrobe conducted business today:

We actually had actual voters line up around 6:30 a.m. to wait for our open at 7:00 a.m., and I touched up my eyeliner whilst they waited:

And at 7:00 a.m. and there for about 20 minutes, we operated as an actual polling location, what with the processing of voters and the calling of, “NEXT, please!” But then, and for the rest of the day, things fizzled out dramatically and the excitement was over. Dramatically, emphatically, over.

This was the first general election that Davis County offered early voting and I guess they had no way of knowing that all those who had any plans of voting at all, ever, decided to do it early. And that was that.

Around 11:00 a.m., Fox 13 showed up for some riotous election coverage, except whoops, there aren’t any voters at one of the busiest polling locations in the county. Whoops, indeed. I offered to remove my “Election Official” nametag and feign voter appearance. The reporter, the very-tall-indeed Brett Benson, reported from the near-empty warehouse-reminiscent location and interviewed several people. As the camera was pointed in my general direction and as I had nothing better to do BECAUSE THERE WERE NO VOTERS, I hastened to text and/or email and/or call Camille to ask her to DVR the news for a possible scarfed-Ashley sighting.

AND BOY ARE YOU IN FOR A TREAT IF YOU CLICK THIS LINK BECAUSE YOU’LL SEE MEEEEEEEEEEE:

http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/pages/News/Politics/Detail?contentId=7788612&version=7&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.14.1

To give you some kind of perspective switcharoo, here’s MY VIEW!

Also:

• My hair isn’t that long; I am wearing a hooded long-sleeved shirt underneath my VOTE NOW t-shirt. It’s blue. It’s a subliminal blue that seemed to work, considering our new president and all.
• In the shot of me in my coat, I am wearing possibly 17 layers and I am still freezing, but I have my fingers exposed and because there are simply zero voters in the building, I am texting. I did a lot of that today. A lot.
• I like how Brett says we were expecting “very large crowds” later today. Well, that didn’t happen. We had nary a crowd at all. We really had nary a person at all. Ever.

And as Camille was lovingly watching me on the news from her (warm) home as I froze, but continued in my civic duty in serving the few voters we had present, she felt it necessary to send this email:

take that pony tail out and put your coat back on!

We really did all have a good laugh out of that one, EVEN BRETT, SUCKAH. And then I said, Brett, don’t you think I look FINE with a ponytail and minus a coat? And he said yes. And I said WELL THEN PROVE IT. And he did:

RaDene said, “Well don’t you two make a cute couple?” and Brett said, “Don’t tell my wife!” And I said, “I wasn’t asking for a date!” and I whispered, “Anymore.”

It was woefully FREEZING ALL DAY LONG TODAY. It snowed off and on, it sleeted, it winded, it thundered, even. But mostly, snot just ran down my face and I chattered my teeth and it was COLD. I kept going out to my car and retrieving layers. Occasionally, heat from some unknown source would funnel into the building somehow and I would shed one or two layers, but they were always apparent and available:

For several hours, I entertained myself with doodling, a caramel apple sucker, and Malcolm Gladwell’s the Tipping Point.

At 6:00 p.m., I shouted that the polls were closed on the East Coast, and no one cared until they realized that it was only two hours until our polls closed. And then a puppy came.

At 6:15 p.m., I realized that there was a LOT happening elsewhere in the world and I started rolling my eyes because I was missing it and because there was NOTHING happening here in this world. And then I took a picture of it BECAUSE THERE WERE NO VOTERS.

I said I would, and you probably did believe me, but I really did take three handfuls of stickers, BECAUSE THERE WERE NO VOTERS TO WEAR THEM. And also some voter access cards. EXCEPT NOT REALLY BECAUSE THEN I WOULD BE ARRESTED.

It’s also insanely apparent that I am in dire need of all of these voter access cards FOR ALL THE VOTERS I AM GOING TO PROCESS VERY SOON:

Around 7:00 p.m., I became pretty much psychotic, and I started making grumpy faces into the camera.

Then Cameron joined me. YOU’LL NOTE THAT THERE ARE NO VOTERS.

I GOT REALLY, REALLY, REALLY TIRED.

Then we cleaned up. And here are just some cleaning and wrapping-up images.

BUT I WILL HAVE YOU KNOW. AND I WILL HAVE YOU KNOW. SO YOU BETTER LISTEN. I loaded 7 of the 10 of these machines on this cart AND THEY ARE VERY HEAVY MACHINES AND I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF WITHOUT ANY HELP ALL BY MYSELF. By myself. Without help.

And then we left.

And I finished my work in the reddest state in the union and I came home to find the red candidate conceding to the blue candidate, and that is what should have happened. And I’m going to go to bed now.

Raccoon-eyes McVoterson says goodnight to the ELECTION OF A LIFETIME AND FOREVER:

Last Tuesday morning, I trained to be a poll worker for the 4 November General Election. WHICH IS TOMORROW, SUCKAHS. To quote Jana on my Facebook profile, “hey there’s an election tomorrow. you might think about voting.”

So I trained last Tuesday. Which Tuesday morning occurred after I’d slept 10.5 hours since the previous Thursday, due to the burst & taper of prednisone to help heal my lungs. Quite frankly, I am surprised I retained my own eyelids, let alone any bit of the training—but they needed workers Friday, Halloween, for the last day of early voting, and since I’ve COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AND UTTERLY OH MY HELL CRASHED OFF THE PREDNISONE EVERYONE HIDE YOUR CHILDREN BECAUSE I WILL BEGIN TO WEEP OVER THEM AND EVERYTHING ELSE AND I ALSO HAVE SOME ANGER AND THREW MY PHONE AGAINST A WALL LAST THURSDAY SO THINK SERIOUSLY BEFORE TEXTING TO SAY HELLO IS ALL I’M SAYING—ahem—and since I’ve recently, um, well, since I’ve recently come off the prednisone and I need some distractions from the world-ending grief over nothing and everything all at once (DRAMA), I said that I would work Halloween. I needed the a) extra practice, b) extra money, and c) extra money.

Also, please collect quarters from between your couch cushions and drop them off at my house. But do not speak to me because I will break down and cry. Or swear a lot. Or hug you and say we should be friends. WHO KNOWS, REALLY?

I was at the courthouse at 8:00 a.m. and voting began at 8:30 a.m. My training took place over another person’s shoulder on that Tuesday, so my hands-on experience began as the first voters filed in. And they filed for the next eight-and-a-half hours and I processed 625 early voters in those eight-and-a-half hours. Only one freaked the righteous eff out, but he did freak the righteous eff out twice, so I guess I did something really special there.

This is what I saw for 10.5 hours on Halloween, and what my eyelids will probably default to when my eyes finally see my eyelids. Which may be never, at this rate:

For your further edification, the typical voter reception sounds a lot like this:

• typeity-typeity-typeity
• State your address please
• I understand that your address is on your drivers license, passport, nametag, in the computer, in your head, on your mailbox, etc., but I still need you to state it
• Yes, seriously
• By law
• No, I’m not kidding
• Thank you
• clickity-clickity-clickity
• Yes, you sign upside-down
• Please wait while I wait while we wait while they wait while everyone waits while wait wait wait wait wait.
• Wait.
• Wait.
• formatty-formatty-formatty
• typeity-typeity-typeity
• STATE YOUR ADDRESS OR SO HELP ME.

So finally, I guess what I’m trying to say here is Yes, yes I did take a handful of “I voted” stickers as a parting gift for my service as a poll worker on Halloween. I distributed several amongst the nieces and nephews, to some minors at church, and amongst those who have not voted and don’t plan to. There are many still left in my purse.

I work the full general election day tomorrow. I report to the polling location at 6:00 a.m., per my instructions, which were mailed to me:

It’s a heck of a good thing I don’t have to set up the night before, because I have a whole lot of blogging to do the night before, and also um, staying up way too late and um, well I have to watch Brian Williams on Conan.

And I’ll have you know, the polls close at 8:00 p.m. Which means I will be taking maybe three handfuls of stickers tomorrow evening, when I leave probably about maybe 2:00 a.m. FRIDAY. Nothing like a sense of civic duty and um other really lame stuff like that. LAME STUFF LIKE THAT AND I’LL PROBABLY NOT KNOW WHO IS THE PRESIDENT UNTIL NEXT TUESDAY WHEN I WAKE UP.

I found some pure gold at the GAP the other day. They’ve taken it upon themselves to come out with some really awesome voting paraphernalia. You’d have to know Andrew to know how really purely golden this piece of gold (beating a dead horse yet?) goldy gold is, but as the original Robin to his Batman:

I had to deliver his goldy golden goldiness to his place of business, which is maybe the most conservative place of business in this reddest state of the Union, and I wore my buttons. Like this (the good thing is the Diet Coke on my seatbelt and the rest of my car and pretty much everything else I own hasn’t stained at all), and with this exact expression upon my redheaded stepchild face:

This particular expression says, “Guess what, suckahs: there’s no ‘no electioneering’ law here.”

I’ll take covert photos of what it’s like to be a real, live election official tomorrow. I’ll be wearing my “VOTE NOW” Old Navy t-shirt and my very own Batman sticker, which I don’t think counts as electioneering, which is not allowed within 150 feet of a polling location. Last time I checked, he’s not on the ballot. Even though Superdell is. Which is wrong. I’d vote for Batman over Superdell, is all I’m saying.

And that is that. Get out there and vote, suckahs.

aka prednisolone can kiss my giant insomniacked behind and high-tail it on outta here with the LAST PILL TODAY. Except the 4–5 days it’ll take to detox. And then the massive, giant, huge downer that is maybe also inevitable. Also, it’s November, so weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

In addition to whatever it is that I’ve cameraphoned above, I also journaled 13 pages of nonsense in blue fake Sharpie and watched two hours of COPS, TMZ, Conan twice, and all manner of infommercials. I tried on the five–seven pairs of jeans Meadow handed down to me and cried when the larger sizes didn’t fit and the smaller ones were loose. The full-sized sheets my mother mailed to me—which match the full-size quilt she also sent—that does not match my room at all—let’s have more em dashes, please—didn’t fit the bed even though the mattress isn’t of any extraordinary depth and I AM SO DAMN TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT JOE THE FREAKING PLUMBER.

And then every time I swear in my head, which is a lot, and even more aloud than in my head right now, I think of Eadie Gwen’s recent habit of exclaiming, “What the heck-hell?” without really knowing that “heck-hell” isn’t particularly part of our everyday vernacular—as heck-hell hilarious as it is—and my soul giggles a little.

CONFLICTED MUCH?

I want to sue the FDA and also my body.

What up SUCKAHS!