Old People are No Good at EVERYTHING

So I finally got around to voting yesterday. Oy. It was yet another sobering reminder that old people can't be trusted to do anything quickly or effectively. My mother and I stopped by the Centerville Library (which can I just say? For a new library, it's pretty pathetic) for the much lauded "early voting" initiative only to find a line winding its way clear back to the periodicals. Such a line was off-putting to say the least, but I promised Milana I would vote (in spite of the fact that my vote doesn't, never has, and never will actually matter).

The fact that said line was teeming with old people didn't bolster my confidence. The fact that old people were running the whole operation was even less encouraging. If people under 30 were running the joint, I'd have been out of there in 5 minutes. With the barrage of shawls, walkers, canes, and dementia present, however, we were there for over 45 minutes. I kid you not, it took nearly an hour to complete a task that could completed in your sleep (and I think for some of the old folks in attendance, probably was).

If there's one thing old people are really good at, it's figuring out new technology. Yeah, not so much... Seriously, when I finally got the voting area, I took my key card, fired up the terminal, and was done voting in about a minute. Even my mother (whom you may remember from such events as: dragging the mouse to the bottom of the mousepad and then not knowing what to do; trying to access her email account by typing her password into the address line of her browser; asking questions like, "So wait, how are there folders inside the camera?" and "What's a hulu?") managed to figure it out, and as you can clearly see, she has a pretty shady track record with technology. It was really that easy.

Or so I thought.

I'm pretty sure these are the people who were running the operation or at very least, the children of the people in line. I know, I know, they look like veritable paragons of speed and efficiency.


The reasons it took forever and a day to get through the line were fully illuminated in a matter of minutes. Some old guy next to me fumbled around trying to insert the access card into every nook and cranny of the terminal until he finally asked the lady for help, another guy basically strong-armed the proctor lady into voting for him, and some old woman may as well have hosted a knitting seminar in the time it took her to cast a ballot. Oy.

Anyway, I finally voted. The only two resolutions that I cared about (the zoo and the aviary) apparently don't apply to my district, so I didn't even get to vote on those. My vote for president doesn't actually matter in this state (thank you ridiculous electoral college), but at least I can cancel out the vote of some gun-toting, Hummer-driving conservative, so that's a plus. :)

Good luck with your own voting endeavors. I recommend you spend some time (read: several excruciating hours) at the senior center in preparation for your trip. BYOD (Bring your own defibrillator).