Veterans’ Day
Or something close to it
It only counts if you say it:
“Please tell me again what you ordered. I want to get this right.”
It’s a cafe in Clinton, South Carolina, the day after election day 2022. America might still be the same country it was when I went to bed the previous night after a long day of working the polls.
It is at least the same country it was on election day when a couple, who told me they came from Vietnam, tried to vote. He was successful, but his wife had issues. When she raised her hand and I walked over to help. I saw that the machine had rejected her. Her “crime?”
She had tried to vote the straight Republican ticket. She actually did so, but then she kept undoing votes, believing that she still had to vote for every candidate individually.
“No,” I said, “You are undoing your vote. You aren’t voting for anybody.”
Her husband walked back over and yelled at her in Vietnamese.
“Sir,” another worker said to him, “You can’t advise her. Husbands cannot tell their wives how to vote.”
Or, at least not in the polling area.
“Oh, oh,” he said as he fled the scene.
They were both wearing Polo attire, complete with down vests and South Carolina…