Do I know you?

Nothing says "small town" quite like election day. I know I bitch about small town life a lot, but there are some really great things about it too. One of the funniest, and most annoying, things is not how many people know you, but how many people think they know you!

My favorite election day tale happened when the husband and I had just moved back to this town after living out of state for awhile. Now, we both grew up here, went to school here, and even got married here. We'd moved away for about 4 years, but no one seemed to notice that we'd ever left. I approached my polling place, which in this county is the same as everyone else's. (Our county has 5, or maybe 6 precincts, and they all vote at one large community center. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that's entirely within the "law", but no one around here is worried about those pesky little details.) This was the first year they were requiring photo ID's, and the little old ladies who had been acting "election judges" since the election of Truman, were both flummoxed and militant about the ID thing. Since I still had a Michigan driver's licence (my Montana licence hadn't come yet) I chose to use my passport as photo ID instead. This was my first mistake. The first challenge was to get by the dragon at the gate, the one who determined if you were registered to vote. This woman lived next door to me the whole time I was living at home, and her son and I were close friends in high school. And yet...
"Hi there, sweetheart. Your ID please," she asked. I presented it to her. "We need a driver's licence, honey. Or some other form of government ID."
"Yes, I know. This is a passport." She stares at me as if I were speaking another language. "It's ID issued by the federal government, and there's my photo, right there."
"Well, let me check," she sighs, and checks her list of acceptable ID. Of course, it's right there at the top of the list. "Okay, then," and she flips through her tome of names in search of mine.
"Are you sure you're registered, April?" she asks me.
"Yes, and my name is Autumn."
"Oh, silly me! Let's see..." she continues to look. I notice she is looking in the "M" section, because my husband's last name starts with M. I, however, did not change my name when I got married, something difficult to explain to these women, some of whom may have been present for the delivery of the Gettysburg address. I inform her of my name, thinking all the while that she is still holding my passport, and the name is printed right on there! Seriously, if she wasn't even going to look, then why give me such grief over my choice of identification? I can feel the people behind me in line growing restless. How dare I try to use alternate ID! How dare I not take my husband's name! What was I trying to do here?

Finally able to pass the gate, I entered the auditorium and head for the table marked with my precinct. More trouble. You see, I grew up on the west side of town. The husband and I now lived on the east side of town. (Sigh)
"I think you want precinct 2, don't you?"
"No, I live on the east side of town now."
"Really? Are you sure? When did you move?" one lady asks me.
"Oh, no," offered another lady, "She and her husband just moved in down the street from us."
"Yeah," I said, all the while wondering if this gal hadn't vouched for me, (and how the hell does she know where I live? I don't know who she is!) how long would I have had to stand there and argue with these women before they simply checked the book? After I wore them down, they finally handed me a ballot and I went on about my business.

So, you can see that I can really feel for these people who stood in line for 4 hours to vote. I didn't stand in line at all and it still took almost a half hour to get a ballot, defending my life choices along the way.