The Audacity of Lines

I don’t much care for waiting, particularly in lines. I know, there’s nobody who ever got caught saying, “Me? I love it!” but I’m one of those heavy sighers. I mean, I can’t stand it.

At 42, I’ve cast my vote in six previous national elections and never had to wait more than 5 minutes to do it. The fact that now, in the 21st Century, with all the technology and modern conveniences, that I would have to wait for three hours to cast a vote seemed truly outrageous. But this morning, after rising late, drinking coffee and reading the paper, I drove to my polling place to see that yes, the pundits hadn’t been hyping: literally hundreds of people were standing in the rain in a line out the door and down the block.

Still, I bravely got out of my car. The wind turned my umbrella inside out and I looked at the line, magnified in size perhaps by the raindrops. Then I turned around and drove home.

My parents are visiting from Colorado, and as I entered my kitchen, all damp and grumpy from my 10-second foray into the wilds, I observed that my dad had taken over the crossword puzzle at my cozy dining room table. He and Mom had conveniently voted absentee, so it burned me a little when he said, “Oh, Debra. You have to go back and vote.”

My reply sounded kind of whiney: “But Dad, the line is sooooooooooooooo long!”

And my quiet father, the least political man I know, looked back at his paper as he said, “Don’t you want to be a part of history?”

The combination of my dad’s disappointed tone and my own shallow realization that the last time I’d waited in a serious line had been in France two years before drove me back out into the rain. And when I found myself in the back of the line at Killian Elementary in Columbia, South Carolina, I observed some interesting parallels to the Eiffel Tower.

(Seriously.)

Just like in Paris, I chose the time I’d hoped would be least crowded (and was horribly mistaken). I had trouble discerning the actual end of the line, the way it weaved and zagged and turned odd corners. I stood still for overlong periods, then, just as I slumped on the ground giving up all possibility of ever moving forward again, the line would lurch ahead 25 feet and a cheerful sense of hope (that quickly resettled into gloom) ensued.

And was it ever a multi-cultural and multi-generational affair! I was crowded from behind by an Asian beauty whose youth and heavy accent implied she was surely the mail order bride of the elderly white gent who accompanied her. I heard foreign languages spoken and listened to a cacophony of hip-hop ringtones. Absent was the Pakistani family eating raw onions at the summit, but when my mom delivered me a brisket sandwich, a sliced red apple and four Oreo cookies, believe me, I got some looks.

I waited three hours and suffered the same sense of “What??!!??” around each corner. There was no sense of how long to expect since each new room you entered appeared to be the last from the outside… yet only led to another room.

The difference was that instead of reminding myself that this was my last night in Paris, and who knew when I’d ever be back, and didn’t I want to see the view from 1,000 feet in the moonlight? was that I had to keep reminding myself that it didn’t matter South Carolina was going to fall to McCain no matter how I voted. That didn't matter because I am determined not to become jaded, despite being a 42-year-old knee-jerk liberal feminist whose only decent president in her adult life had an annoying personal life that (due to right-wing persecution) interfered with his ability to make any meaningful change in this nation and by God, I don’t care about the electoral college, I don't care about South Carolina, I gotta get out and vote! I really want to believe I'm that one vote that counts, that one fantastical hopeful voter making the difference just putting in her two cents.

When I finally made it into the room, into the line for L-Z where I waited to show my ID and eventually cast my vote, the view was not unlike Paris at midnight from 1,000 feet. In the weird midsummer twilight that substitutes for actually darkness at that latitude, a haze persisted, like the haze of hopefulness floating about the room. I could almost make out Versailles in the distance, all gilded and shimmery... just like my Democrat in the White House will look after too, too damn long a wait.