A Funny Thing Happened at the Voting Booth Today #15 of 31

It's a busy month of writing and commenting with the Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life March Challenge.  Please visit their site to read other slice of life stories and leave a comment or two.

I am a small town girl and always have been.  Today, I got a taste of what it's like to live in a really small town...

Today was voting day!  I was excited to be able to cast my vote in this historical election.  Since moving, this was the first time I was voting in my new town.  

I walked in, gave the clerk my driver's license, and took the ballot she handed me.  

Um...this ballot was much larger than the ones I had used in my previous county.  I looked up, scanning the room for the electronic voting machines and instead saw rows of white banquet tables set up with dividers (like the ones we use for testing) and folding chairs.  No machines...there were pens.  Ok.  I quickly realized that I would be filling in bubbles to do my voting.

Then, the clerk handed me a cardboard sleeve like the one pictured below.  

I was really confused as to what to do with that, but decided I'd figure it out at the table. I quickly found a seat and cast my votes, carefully coloring in the ovals with my black ball point pen.  I put the ballot into the cardboard sleeve, not sure if I was supposed to line it up a certain way.  The arrows indicated that maybe I should.  I walked the ballot over to the next table where a young lady asked me to take it out and tear off the stub.

Oh my.  These were not steps in my voting repertoire!  I fumbled with the ballot, keeping my colored ovals facing the table so as not to reveal my choices, and tore off the stub.

"Do I put the ballot back in the cardboard sleeve?"  I asked, feeling a little foolish.

The young girl looked at me and replied (very politely) that yes I should and pointed to a machine with two high school boys standing nearby.  

"Oh, I take my ballot over there?"

"Yes, ma'am."

So, I walked over to the machines (again, something new to me) and asked the boys if I should insert my ballot into one of the machines.  

"Yes, ma'am."  they replied (again, very politely).

Now, there was no picture to guide me, as the one shown below.  I looked at the machine very carefully, wondering how that whole cardboard sleeve was going to fit into that very tiny slit.  I decided to give it a try.

"Um, ma'am.  It will probably go in better if you take the ballot out of the cardboard."

Oh!  

I quickly pulled the ballot out and slid it into the machine and returned the cardboard sleeve to the very polite boys.

I could only imagine what they were thinking about me as I walked away.  

I'm sure I provided a chuckle or two as they told their friends about my inept attempts to finalize my voting.