I Need Your Sticker For Another Coffee

Today is the big day. I've been looking forward to November 4th, 2008, for a very long time now. It's true that presidents don't play as big of a role as most people think. It's as important to vote for your Congressmen or Congresswomen as it is for the next president of our country. However, this is a key election and either way I'm ready for change. I don't think that's out of bounds to say. It upsets me when people assume that just because I'm young I'm uneducated and don't understand the political scene. I would like to think that I do a pretty darn good job of educating myself on the issues and the candidates. Whatever is important to you... the war, the economy, immigration, the environment, shipping American jobs overseas, education, Social Security, health care... this is an opportunity to have your voice heard. So don't be the one to say that your vote doesn't matter. It does. It's important to exercise your right and participate in such a patriotic act. Oh, sorry. Patriot Act. Touchy subject.

Key elections always remind me of the years that I worked at a law firm close to St. Louis in Madison County, Illinois. Let's just say that tort reform is about a foreign word in Madison County as uncontroversial voting is in Florida. Whoops. Both examples I used weren't words at all, rather phrases. You catch the drift. Anyway, the moral of the story is that the law firm had their eyes on particular judges winning the election so everyone could continue making mass amounts of money. (By the way, I'm still not totally sure how I feel about that time in my life. Let's just agree that we won't have an argument about tort reform now, OK? It will just make my head spin. Thank you.)

Anyway, my job on election day was to pick up people and take them to the polls. I actually enjoyed doing this. You never knew what was going to happen and it was at least more entertaining than pretending like I was working all day long. That's hard work! So, I would haul people around in my car and hear from every single one of them how I should put 20's on my Cadillac. People refuse to accept that I'm cool by driving a Caddy until I put bigger rims on my tires. What they don't know, though, is that I'm already cool because I know every single word to R. Kelly's "Ignition" as well as most words to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". Umm... scratch the last one. I forgot that I was just bored and wasn't trying to be cool.

So I hope all of my friends in Madison County have a ride this year. I'll be thinking of you. Vote! And try to not get into any fights tomorrow at work.