Electric

I voted today. If you've been paying any attention to this sort of thing, you know that people have been reporting that Early and Advance Voting (what's the difference, anyway?) has been An Ordeal. Well, they're not wrong.

I arrived at one of the seven designated Advance Voting locations sprinkled throughout Fulton County (the Spruill Oaks Library, in this case) just after 2 p.m. The meager library parking lot was jam-packed, of course, and cars lined the street for at least half a mile. As soon as I took my place in the back of the line, which wrapped halfway around the outside of the building, I began to hear murmurs that the voting computer systems were down. Indeed they were. Throughout the state. For, depending on who you spoke to, somewhere between 30 minutes and two hours. Given that my time these days is worth exactly $0.00, I decided to wait anyway, in case the systems went back up. They did; it took me just over four hours from the time I got in line to the time I walked out the library door, sticker in hand. Worth it? I think so.

Look on the bright side. If McCain wins by exactly one vote, I will be absolved of responsibility. I can blame one of you like-minded lefties who "forgets" to vote or figures we're far enough ahead anyway. Also, much like my recent eight-hour-each-way flights to and from Europe, it was a few pristine, undisturbed hours to read a book or play Guitar Hero on my Nintendo DS.

I came prepared. We young people seem more equipped for waiting around than adults do. They never seem to bring enough entertainment, like my dad, who brought exactly ONE magazine for the aforementioned eight hour transatlantic flight. The vast majority of the voters in line with me brought nothing, and the few who did held only a single magazine or newspaper. I'd packed the first Harry Potter book (as I'm endeavoring to reread the entire series), my DS and my iPod. About two hours into the wait, my mom brought me a Coke and some Halloween candy. Now I don't expect all the adults out there to have moms to bring them snacks, but the benefit of today's tote-bag-sized purses is that they can contain hours of entertainment. It makes the waiting almost painless.

One thing I noticed was how little people were complaining. It was cold, especially in the shade. The wait was LONG. There's a mentality among Americans (among all adults? among all people?) of "I want what I want and I want it now," and patience is rare. Even a short wait in line at Kroger will feature at least one jackass sighing exasperatedly and muttering, "C'mon, what's the hold up here?!" And yet, waiting in a four hour (or more-- before we got inside the library, we had no real way of estimating how much longer the wait would be) line to vote for president, nobody says a word. Maybe everyone realized how important the wait was; maybe the types of people who come a week early to vote have more patience; maybe the true complainers balked at even the idea of a long wait and turned around when they saw the parking lot was full. Regardless, it was refreshing.

The people in line around me were all very nice and genial. People shared what little reading material they'd thought to bring; they saved strangers' spots in line so others could stand in the warm sun for a few minutes. At one point, a local news helicopter hovered above the library. We all waved. "Maybe they're coming to airlift us outta here," somebody suggested, laughing. "Maybe they're dropping supplies for us," someone else joked. I kept expecting everybody to get fed up and start yelling at the voting officials, or a riot of impatient suburbanites to break out, but it never happened. It was the most pleasant experience a four-hour wait in the cold and wind at the local library could be.

Now let's just hope the outcome is just as pleasant. Friendly strangers won't make up for four more years of nonsense. Go vote!