An Election Day Memory

November 7, 2000

After voting, Chris and I went out for Chinese food with some friends. We ate and strolled around Target for a while. We got back in the car; the radio came on, and an announcer said: "We are now calling Florida for Al Gore. I repeat, Al Gore has won Florida."

"Did he say Florida?" I said, amazed. "Wow, he's certain to win now!"

This was the end, the end of innocence.

Okay, it would be more effective if I just stopped writing, but I also remember Election Day 1992, when I was in England and couldn't vote. I also had no TV and no radio and (can you imagine) no internet (because Gore hadn't invented it yet). I was in my tiny dorm room writing a paper on Gulliver's Travels when I heard someone down the hall shouting: "~~Ralph Nader~~ Ross Perot has won three states!"

I was relieved, the next morning, when I found a newspaper and found it wasn't so.

Comments

aimee said…

That was the year that I was pregnant with Rhett and we were in Kansas and I couldn't vote because I never changed my driver's license to a Kansas license. Which was good because in just 2 short months, we moved back to Texas.

5:51 PM

Karen said…

That was the election that has never ended. People are still wondering what would have happened if...

I am also intrigued about the ballot in Nevada which has a "none of the above" choice. What if everyone chooses that one?

7:03 PM

Merry Christmas to Joey, too!

Scene: After the Christmas pageant. Me: You did great, Mallory, we're proud of you! Mallory: What was your favorite part? Me: Hmm. I liked the "Whatcha Gonna Call That Baby?" song. Chris: I liked that one too. Me: But I also liked "Joy to the World." Mallory: Joey in the world? What's that? Me: No, joy to the world, the song you just sang. Mallory: Oh yeah. Me: That's one of my favorite songs. Phoebe: A favorite song is a song that's your favorite and you like it and you sing. (Pause) Phoebe: And you dance. Mallory, before the show, in front of our haphazardly decorated Christmas tree. Phoebe declined to be photographed. All I was able to photograph of the event itself: Phoebe, objecting to the camera's flash: Now she closes her eyes before I snap every picture. Sigh. But she's cute anyway! And so is Mallory! And their dresses match! We're thinking Arby's: Okay, that's it! Recently read: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife . ...

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Mallory was invited for a sleepover tonight; this morning, as she was packing her suitcase, Phoebe came in and said, "Me too!" When Chris found her suitcase, and gently told her that she wasn't invited to the sleepover, she cried for an hour. I think I'll always have a special sort of sympathy for Phoebe, my second child, because I was the second child too*. (And it's odd, because although I have younger siblings as well, I always think of myself as a little sister, or as the younger older sister, if that makes sense. I think that's because Jana, my big sister, was so good at being the oldest, responsible and, uh, authoritarian, and I am, well, fundamentally irresponsible. We all bowed to her! In a good way. I could never live up to that.) I often feel sorry for Phoebe, left behind while Mallory goes to school all day, because I well remember the long, lonely boring days I spent waiting for Jana to come home from school (not counting the days I spent playing i...

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