Farmer H Feels The Guilt Of A Two-Timer

We had business down in Bill-Paying Town on Monday. I met Farmer H at Pony House, to keep him from driving all the way back to the Mansion. Since I was a bit early, we decided to kill time by voting. Actually, we had planned on voting all along, but AFTER the purpose of our business in Bill-Paying Town. With about 20 minutes to spare, we went to vote first. 

The county election commission or some such entity has a polling place where you can vote early. I think it opens two weeks before the election. It is quite handy for those who don't like walking up and down steps to the church basement that is their regular polling place. Truth be told, this new voting center is the OLD MORGUE from the hospital that closed. At least that's what I've been told, whenever I try to explain where it is.

We went there last year, or perhaps the one previous, when The Pony was living with us. As then, Farmer H pulled up under the entryway, and I got out of A-Cad and walked up a slight ramp and through two automatic glass doors, to wait in line to show my ID. Easy peasy. Four women were ahead of me. We arrived during rush hour, I suppose, as we watched each husband drop off the wife before going to park.

There was a long folding table on each side of the entry to the rectangular room. It was about the size of a classroom. You gave your Missouri driver's license or state ID to one of the workers, who scanned it and flipped a screen around to ask if your name and address were correct. Then you had to sign the screen with a little rubber-tipped short pencil thingy. The worker told another worker which voting precinct you belonged in, so they could give you the right ballot.

From there, you took your ballot to a long folding table to vote. ONE PER TABLE! With a cardboard science-fair-ish divider so nobody could see. The pens to use for voting were on the table. ONE PER TABLE! Last time they made a big show of having you turn in your pen after voting, so they could SANITIZE it and give it out again. Not this time! I asked what to do with the pen, and the lady told me LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE. Yuck. I would have brought my own. Lucky for me I had my GERM-X in the car in my purse.

Anyhoo... by then Farmer H had arrived, and took his ballot to the table across the aisle on my left. We finished about the same time. He said,

"Here. I can take your ballot back to the scanner. So you don't have to walk."

Fine with me! I'm not sure if that table-top thingy actually scanned the ballots, or just collected them. You feed them in like a document into a fax machine, but then the ballot stays inside. When it's full, a worker locks them in a box, and resets the machine to accept more. Last time they were doing that, and we had to wait a minute.

Anyhoo... I didn't want to start out without Farmer H. He had the keys, and knew where A-Cad was parked. But people were coming in to vote, so I didn't want to keep sitting at the table next to my soiled pen. So I got up. But that darn Farmer H was still holding the ballots, yukking it up with a worker in the back of the room. He'd chew the fat with anybody.

When he came out, I asked what took so long. He said,

"Well, I didn't want him to think I was VOTING TWICE! So I pointed to you so he'd know it was your ballot I was bringing."

Huh. Hope he didn't add some comment about how BLOATED I was like his friend that died! Besides, who would think Farmer H was illegally voting twice? As if those workers would have given him two ballots. Or maybe he'd slipped another voter a mickey, and took his ballot. I never would have thought someone might assume I'd voted twice. Around here, couples come in together all the time. So it would seem logical that a spouse was saving the other some steps.

As we went out the double doors, with Farmer H going to get A-Cad, a dude was lurking around. He'd been inside, trying to make small talk with the ID scanner lady after he voted. Not cool! They had a job (unpaid) to do!

I opened up A-Cad's door, and said to Farmer H,

"That was WAY easier than walking down and up the church basement steps!"

DUDE said, "Oh, do you normally vote in Somewheretown?"

"No. We vote out past the prison. At.. uh... what's it called?" 

Neither Farmer H nor I could remember the name of that church! We've never forgotten it before. But we both drew a blank. Probably because of the nosiness of Dude! Who went on to say, 

"Oh. That sounded like where I vote. We have to use the church basement, too."

You're not gonna believe this, but when I got to where I was going, somebody there ALSO said they vote in a church basement. More on that visit tomorrow...