My Election Day Diary, Part I

Posted: November 8th, 2016 | Filed under: Politics | No Comments »

November 8, 2016 (I’m with her.)

Pizza for dinner. ✔︎

Chips, Potato & Corn ✔︎

Brownie ✔︎

Cookies ✔︎

Extra Bag of Peppridge Farm Bordeaux (Just in case.) ✔︎

Six pack of A & W Diet Root Beer. ✔︎

Extra Bag Original Pop’d Kerns. (Uh, just in case.)

Loaf of bread and butter. ✔︎ (In times of extreme stress, I’ve been known to power eat slice after slice after slice of a loaf of bread toasted and slathered with butter.)

Hole in the pit of my stomach larger than the cratered sinkhole at the Corvette Museum. ✔︎

Yes, on this seriously important and pivotal Election Day ’16, I am very very very nervous.

When I’m nervous, I eat.

 * * * * *

I voted late morning at my polling place in Clifton.

Fortunately there were no menacing looking Kentucky Militia guys outside with submachine guns strapped across their chests. (Apparently their ilk are making a statement at various locales around the land.)

It was an orderly gathering of patriots, doing their civic duty.

There was only a single bit of commotion.

I thought a young lady was cutting the line in front of me and I barked at her, “Uh, line here.” At which point, the lady in charge behind the desk pointed out that I was in the A-L line, and the young woman was an M-Z, where there was no wait.

Like I said, I am very very very nervous. At which moments, I tend to get even more cranky than usual.

I apologized to all. Profusely. Twice.

 * * * * *

Walking out, I ran into my next door neighbors.

To honor Hillary, Jane was wearing a bright yellow pantsuit. It appeared to be fashioned from 100% vintage 1980s virgin polyester doubleknit.

“I had to look all over town to find this.”

Nasty Women Rule!

  * * * * *

To avoid the inclemency, I then went to the Jewish Center to jog/run.

Even though according to my doc, because of a nagging health issue, I’m not supposed to do anything strenuous.

Like I said, I am very very very nervous. I needed to sweat.

On the way out of the workout area, I noticed the scrawl on one of the TVs over an elliptical machine.

“Trump Camp Files Lawsuit Over Early Voting in Nevada.”

My first thought: “What a scumbag. Can’t he even wait until the polls have closed?”

My second thought: “This election won’t be over until the Electoral College vote is certified on December 19. Assuming, that is, that all of Trump’s inevitable legal maneuvering has been quashed by then.”

 * * * * *

With lunch — something to hold me until the real obsessive nervous noshing commences with the evening’s TV reports — I finally got around to reading a New York Times article with a cultural perspective on the candidates, sent my friend Ben.

Being a movie buff, I loved the analogies of Hillary and Bill to the characters in “The Big Chill.” While the author Jonathon Mahler wrote, “Think of Mr. Trump — thin-skinned, red-faced, schooled in uniform — as the R.O.T.C. commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer in “Animal House.”

 * * * * *

Jane in her yellow pantsuit.

The Donald as Neidermeyer. (Oh, for a golf ball to his noggin.)

I’ll take levity and a smile in whatever form it comes on this day.

Like I said, I’m very very very nervous.

I intend to continue this diary later.

Unless I’m simply too you know what, and can’t pull myself away from a bag of chips.

— c d kaplan

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