Tuesday, October 23, 2007

My first voting experience

The very first Presidential election I remember was the 1992 campaign opposing Clinton, Bush and Perot. I grew up in a very Republican household, so of course I supported Bush.

I was in the 3rd grade that year. We studied the election in school, where I learned that Perot was called the "dark horse" because he was not expected to win. I changed my loyalties then and there... not because I felt sorry for him because he was behind, but rather because I liked horses.

One day we held a mock election. Two voting booths surrounded by curtains were set up in the 4th/5th grade hall. The entire 3rd grade (about 90 students) lined up to vote. I was near the back of the line. We were each given a small slip of white paper and told to go cast our vote.

One by one, my classmates walked into the little booths with their pieces of paper, pulled the curtains shut behind them, and then reemerged some 30 seconds later sans paper slip. Then it was my turn.

I walked into the voting booth and closed the curtains behind me. There was a large cardboard box inside, covered in red, white and blue construction paper. All of the sudden, I froze: nobody had told me what to do! So I counted to 30, hid my slip of paper by stuffing it as far down into my pocket as it would go, then left the booth to rejoin the end of the line outside.

I spent the rest of the day deathly afraid that one of the teachers would discover that I hadn't done whatever I was supposed to do with that little white piece of paper.

2 comments:

The Lone Beader® said...

Ha! I can't believe no one told you to vote for Clinton! LOL.

Martina said...

How cute :-)