(02) voting

When I was a very little girl, I'd go vote with my parents, and we'd walk to somebody's garage and cram ourselves into the grubby gunmetal booth together and draw the curtain, and my father and then my mother would show me which levers to turn and I'd turn them, and then there'd be a new President or Governor or Parish Tax Commissioner or whatever. And it was all very civic-minded, of course, my parents training me up proper to be a good little voter. It always felt more like magic than like civics, though; being in the booth was like being in the cupboard of the Wizard of Oz, it felt as though we two people in there together were ruling the world for five minutes or so.

And I'm over forty now, been voting for more than twenty years, and in Georgia the booths were replaced by Diebold machines before I ever moved here (and believe it or not, Diebold machines are decidedly less mysterious and romantic than grubby steel booths). Still, though, I get a little rush when I press the CAST BALLOT option on the touch screen. I am still ruling the world, in that moment, and if that sensation hasn't gone away by now, I don't expect it ever will.