Don't Vote On An Empty Stomach

Hello all.

Just voted. As in, 15 minutes ago.

I walked to the Uniting Church up the road (almost got lost, which was incredibly embarrassing in a minor way), dodged the people with flyers and funny shirts and told a lady behind a table my name. It was all so weirdly ordinary - could have been quite a boring situation if I hadn't been so wound up.
She handed me two bits of paper - I say bits, but the white one was at least as large as one of those height measurement charts (you know, the ones with a cartoon character every few centimeters) in a pediatrician's office. I somehow wrangled them up to the little cardboard booth-y thing that was vacant and stared at them blankly. A cold chill grabbed my stomach, as I realised that not only had I forgotten what my preferences were: I had forgotten which party was Labour and which Liberal! I stood there a few moments, not literally breaking out in a cold sweat but coming fairly close - when the woman on my right leaned over and asked a person behind a table a similar question.
Fairly confident of this basic fact, I turned back to the obscenely gigantic ballot papers. I had intended to 'vote below the line', because they say that's more democratic and responsible but staring at this monstrous list of options I freaked out and quickly scrawled a '1' in a box... then spent about twenty minutes folding the paper so it could fit in the ballot box...

And I was done. I probably would have been spared much of the tension if I weren't doing the 40 hour famine this weekend.

I passionately hate politics and politicians. They're just a bunch of mud-slinging four year olds during election time. Douglas Adams said, "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." and I thoroughly agree with the man (even though we don't have a president... thank God!). But I'd rather have a PM who is quite obviously stupid and incompetent and horrible than one who pretends not to be...

I attended another Election Day recently - and it was a lot more fun...




There were baked goodies!