Difficult Music

Saturday was sure a long day. The belter and I worked at a polling station in Kerrisdale for the civic election. We signed people in, gave them ballots and some instructions, and sent them to the polling booth. The voters in this neighbourhood were, for the most part, elderly. During my 12-hour shift I think I saw every type of assistive device available—walkers, crutches, wheelchairs, hearing aids, wrist braces.

Nobody whizzed up to our table in one of those four-wheel scooters, though. I'm not a big fan of those things, those supercharged golf-cart/bumper-car hybrids. Not only are they a menace 2 sidewalk safety, they also give me the impression that their drivers are simply too lazy to get up and walk. The scooter pilots don't seem that old—maybe 50, 55. What went wrong? Did they just give up?

But whatever. Nobody got flattened by a throttle-happy diabetic. There were hazards, though. My registration book got drooled on twice. Some people walked away in the middle of my how-to-vote spiel, which I made an effort to keep brief. These were inevitably the same people who'd walk back to our table with ballots they'd spoiled because they didn't listen to us. The great majority of the people, especially those who got up bright and early to vote within the first couple hours, were as pleasant as could be.

We had a good crew working alongside us, fetching us tea and coffee and pizza throughout the day. Considering we had only 40 spoiled ballots at the end (out of over 1100 ballots), I think we did an excellent job. With Acmac presiding over the whole operation, how could things go wrong?
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Get well soon, JR!