How to Avoid Voting Lines on Election Day

1. Go to bed at 9:00 pm Monday night, get plenty of sleep so you can make a rested, rational decision on Election Day.
2. Set alarm for 6:00 am. Polls open at 6:00 am in Indiana, this way there may be a voter line, but you will still have 2 hours to get through it and still make it to work by 8:00 am.
3. When alarm sounds, hit snooze repeatedly until it’s 6:12.
4. Panic because you’ve now blown your schedule by sleeping 12 minutes late.
5. Brush teeth in panic. While doing so, notice clock on bathroom wall says it’s 6:30, not 6:12. AAAHHHH! No time to figure out which one is correct, must assume the later one is correct. GET MOVING!!!
6. Wonder why wife is still sleeping soundly at 6:15, she usually gets up at 5:45. So sneak out of house, not waking wife or the pugs, and back out of drive with car lights out so as not to wake slumbering sweetheart. Almost hit mail box. Almost hit neighbor’s mailbox. Turn on car lights.
7. Drive 900 feet to the school/voting place.
8. Notice no lights are on at the school or in the parking lot at 6:17, but there are cars in the parking lot. Aha, they must be inside voting. Drive around the dark parking lot trying to find a close parking space that doesn’t have a dark blue handicapped sign painted on the dark black lot. Don’t notice that there are people sitting IN the cars in the parking lot.
9. While doing so, notice clock in car shows that it’s 5:17. Whu? Look at new watch on wrist that you reset to proper time Saturday when you bought it. Notice that the new watch is not luminous so you can’t read it in the dark. Turn on dome light and notice that you made a purchasing decision based on vanity rather than practicality because you can’t tell what time it is as the watch has a black face and only shows the 3, 6, 9, and 12 locations. But it’s a REALLY COOL watch. Decide to trust car clock remembering now that the time changed yesterday (daylight savings) – “FALL BACK in the FALL”. You're early, not late. Duh.
10. Try to figure out what to do for next 43 minutes.
11. Go buy donuts and coffee at the other corner.
12. Return to polling place.
13. Now there’s a line. And LOTS of cars in the lot.
14. Start reading book you strategically brought to pass the time. Notice that as you’ve been reading the book for the last 2 minutes, 10 cars have pulled into the lot.
15. Decide that you are now risking missing work by reading as the line is getting longer.
16. 5:42, go get in line to vote.
17. Tell woman standing in line next to you story about the .357 magnum bullet you accidentally carried on board a commercial jet liner last year in your purse (see previous blog/post The Magic Bullet Theory for bullet story). Decide that’s probably NOT the best story to be telling a stranger and everyone within hearing distance, especially when you try to explain why a male is carrying a purse.
18. Shut up and vote.
19. Drive to work.
20. Sign in clock at work shows a different time from all the other clocks you’ve seen this morning. Decide knowing that it’s Tuesday is good enough. Screw what time it is.
21. Ponder, all day, how you made it to work the day before on Monday at 7:15 am. You must have thought you were late (8:15), but were actually an hour earlier than you thought and didn’t notice it all day. Wonder how that can happen. Go back to being satisfied with knowing that today is Tuesday, but VOW to change alarm clock tonight. Will you remember? Probably not.