Muffins and Voting

If you think my title is a non sequitur, it is. I just feel like talking about two totally different things.

MUFFINS

Last night I made pumpkin spice muffins, 12 mini ones and 6 full size ones. They were delicious. I think Mr. PhizzleDizzle ate 2 large and several small just last night, and then more for breakfast today. This makes me happy. I have plenty more pumpkin to make more too. I have never been a very talented baker (Asians don't really bake - and who to learn to bake from but your mom? If your mom doesn't bake, you are shit out of luck, like me), but these were quite good and I am feeling super badass.


VOTING

Procrastinator that I am, I registered to vote today, the very last day you are allowed to do so. No, it is not because I am a bad citizen and have not exercised my right before, it is just that since moving to this state, I had not registered and there were no elections so I just never did, until now.

Anyway, there were a few signs of the sad state of our society. I go to register, and I am paired with a very friendly young lady (god, did I just say that? that means I'm old. shit.) who filled out my forms. A few things to note:

1) She asked me whether I wanted to register with a party of be unaffiliated. I ask, "What does that really mean?" What I am looking for are implications of being registered or not. Like, black-box wise, what does that mean. Does that mean I get literature? Does that mean they will call me all the time asking for donations? What does that mean?

The girl thinks I am asking about what it means in a much simpler sense, "Well, there's the Republican Party...."

I am thinking to myself, "omfg, I know that." Like, either she's crazy, or the people that come in are just that uneducated, or I don't know.

So then she thinks that I think that if I register as a member of Party X, I am required to vote straight ticket come Election Day. Good god, I know that's not true. Do people think that's true? Then what the fuck is the point? Jesus Louisus, we need a national Civics class or something. Damn.

So she asks the lady next to her, who appears to be a veteran of voting affairs. She assures me that I can vote any way I want on Election Day regardless of how I affiliate myself.

I assure her that I understand that, but I want to know what the implications are. She says, they might send you literature.

I consider political literature to be propoganda and I prefer to find my own information, so I said, forget it. I am marked down as unaffiliated.

2) Then she has to take my previous address from which I was a registered voter. She does not know the Postal abbreviation for this state, which is fine. I don't know all of them either. Then, the older lady said, "State X? You mean Biggest City in State X?" *turns to girl* "You'll have to put that down."

Girl thinks that Biggest City is actually another state, and asks me what the code is for that. OMFG. I said, "No, I was not in Biggest City, I was in Small Town." I know that what they're after is just my frickin address, and old lady is just crazy. So I'm like, lemme just tell you my address.

The thing that drove me crazy was this totally weird concept of cities, states, and other such domains being equivalent, or they couldn't tell them apart, or what. It was just insane. This made me sad.

3) Finally, I am asked to look over my form before I sign it.

I notice that in the area where you are supposed to check your affiliation, it tells me that the only way to vote in primaries is to be affiliated with that particular party. Well, if there is a primary in the future, you better be damned sure I want to vote in it. On top of that, that's the kind of relevant info I wanted to know when I asked about it in the beginning. Like, the MOST important thing. Jeeza Louisa. So I'm like, well I change my mind then. This would have been helpful to know before, put me down as Party X (as if you can't guess what I put).

So, in the end, I am registered. I am going to exercise my right to vote. However, while taking part in this glorious privilege of ours, I am saddened to know that people are that fucking stupid. Either the Election people were stupid, or they come across so many stupid people that they are forced to conclude everyone is stupid and go down to stupid levels. Because I never meet anyone who assumes I'm that stupid, not even troll-y male professors. They at least give some benefit of the doubt, like that I know that there are two (major) fucking political parties in this country, and that gosh golly, we are allowed to vote however we fucking choose on Election Day.

god save us.