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On Saturday, I finally received my voter’s registration card for Virginia.  This prompted the following reactions:

1.  Relief.  Marques and I were very much voter-registration-slackers, which was uncalled for considering there were about 8 registration tables set up at my metro stop everyday.  And I would just whistle and pass by until one day, someone called out “Only a week left to register!” and I was like fuuuuuuuck.  Part of me hoped to commit a bit of voter fraud and vote absentee in West Virginia, but realized that since I had procrastinated this long to send my voter registration form in, one could only guess when I would get around to sending in an absentee ballot.  Also, I hate the post office.  Why can’t these things be done online?

2.  Elation.  Yay voting.

3.  Immediate concern about not knowing how to get to my polling place without the use of Google Maps. In 2004, I had to drive 45 minutes to vote because I didn’t change my address and thus, had to drive alllll the way to Charleston after I got off work.  I arrived 15 minutes before the polls closed, and then I had to turn around and drive all the way back to Huntington because we had to put a newspaper out that night.  John Kerry still lost.  (sidenote:  Google Maps has this really cool feature that tells you your polling place, so even though I had to resort to using it, at least I know where to go)

4.  Annoyance.  The Virginia voters cards are like a origami nightmare, with folding and more folding.  West Virginia voter registration cards look old and vintage which is probably due to West Virginia being one of the poorest states in the nation.  They’re printed on thin-thin dirty yellow cardboard that I once accidentally tore in half and had to tape back together.  Virginia cards are bright white with fancy folding.  It reminds me of old Mad Magazines, where you fold the page to point A to B and a secret HILARIOUS message appears.  I was sort of hoping that my secret hilarious voting message would be “FAKE VIRGINIA FOR MCCAIN” but alas, no.

5.  Vindication.  Marques got his voter registration card on Friday, which sent me into a jealous rage a la The Incredible Hulk.  I went a little HULKSMASH on voter’s rights and the Virginia board of voter registration for their oversight in sending me my card.  Marques taunted me quite a bit about it too, as everything that we do is a competition.  I like to think that Virginia was just saving the best for last.

(Other things we did this weekend include walking in nature and not seeing snakes, eating our weight in fried cheese and pasta, too much Will Bailey, our first real attempt at utilizing a treadmill, eating our weight in honey-wheat pancakes, discovering pumpkin butter at Trader Joe’s, eating my weight in pumpkin butter, watching too many baseball games)