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What’s that You Say?

John Amendall

    “Good morning ladies. Hope all’s well with you,” the masked man exuberantly exclaimed entering the polling site. The greeting was silently acknowledged by five nodding masked women, sitting gravely behind an elongate table.
    Before the women described the voting procedure the man took the initiative. “Good thing I’m wearing a mask. Otherwise you’d be scared to death if you saw me without it.” No response. And of course he couldn’t determine whether they were smiling behind their masks. “Guess it wasn’t as witty as I thought it was,” he said to himself.
    Moreover, one lady mumbled “...”
    “How’s that again?” The man responded. “Couldn’t hear you. Confound mask. It’s interfering with my hearing. Darn strings around my ears are strangling sounds coming in.” The Fabulous Five looked strangely at him as if he’d said something ... strange.
    “Would you repeat that please?” he requested
    “Your mask.”
    “Yes. What about my mask?
    “You’re wearing it upside down.”
    “Does it make a difference?”
    “Yes. You wear it so it covers your mouth and nose.”
     “We need your identification,” one poll worker mumbled.
     “You most certainly do,” he replied trying to win them over.
    “Your state driver’s license will do.”
    The man struggled to remover his wallet from his hind pocket. Dropped it on the floor. One could hear his knees crack as he bent to retrieve it. The Fab Five held their breath waiting for him to come up right rather than keeling over. This degree of drama was certainly unsettling for their duty station. Collectively they wondered if the man had had a few snorts before his arrival.
    With equal difficulty he strove to remove his Wisconsin driver’s license from his wallet. Yes! That Wisconsin. Something about absentee ballots sent with no post marks.
    Since he’d clipped his fingernails the night before, he had considerable difficulty gripping the license slipping it out of his wallet. He’d purposely arrived early to beat a crowd avoiding long lines and irritating irregularities which were occurring anyway. “Glad we’re in a small town.
Five open polling places in Milwaukee. Ridiculous,” he thought. He was relieved no one was behind him as they might’ve been impatient at his lame ministrations.
    After successfully retrieving his license from his wallet, he placed it on the table pushing it towards one of the Fab Five for her inspection. His hand struck a
plastic screen guard separating voters and ballot counters which up till now he hadn’t noticed. “Gosh darn it. It hurt” he grumbled.
    “Did you say something sir?” He didn’t want to tell them the obvious that he’d bruised his knuckles against the screen guard he hadn’t noticed.
    Awkwardly fingering the license he turned it towards the Fab Five for their viewing. He may have been imaging things becoming a bit sensitive but he couldn’t help notice several of them cringing at his license picture. If this was accurate, his comment at the outset was more than a lame witticism.
     “Sir. How do you spell and pronounce your name? We’ve seen some variations in spelling with one r and two r’s.”
    “That’s easy enough,” he responded. “In German mauer with one r is a wall. A maurer with two r’s is a stonemason or bricklayer. A maurer (ruhr) builds a mauer (er). You can clearly see, we can make no unfounded claims about presumed European aristocracy.”
    Actually the women couldn’t care less about some irrelevant German lesson. This guy was enough to drive one to drink which they had already attributed to him. Fortunately one of the Fab Five was a closet drinker willing to share some of her Gobsmack Whiskey. She pulled a big bottle out of her purse the size of a duffel bag. One woman said something about contacting Security to get rid of Mr. Nuisance Maurer with two r’s.
    Finally with gloved hands one of the ladies awarded him a ballot and informed him about its organization. Another pointed to a bowl of colored pens.
    He hesitated over his choice looking for his favorite color.
    “Just pick one. Anyone will be fine. I’m sure. After you finish marking your ballot drop the pen for sanitization into the bowl next to the recording machine.”
     “I hope they don’t think I’m going to steal one of their pens,” he mused.
    Ballot in hand he started to read and fill it out. “Gosh darn it. No chairs. How’s an old dude like myself going to fill this out standing up?”
    He walked over to the nearest wall lined irregularly with chairs. Just as he started to grab a chair one of the Fab Five grabbed the same one. Surprised. This resulted in a vigorous tug of war. He was further embarrassed as the lady won the tug of war easily pulling it out of his hands. Why were they fighting over the stupid chair? He’d initially thought she was trying to take the chair from him.
    In fact she promptly placed it at a writing table, directing him to sit.
    Prior to voting he’d done some homework on the candidates. He’d already decided who he was going to support. After marking his ballot he walked over to the recording machine. The same lady he’d arm wrestled with over the chair snatched the ballot from his hand lest he caused additional confusion inserting his ballot. Actually it didn’t matter as the machine worked correctly regardless which end was first. The man wondered how this was so and wanted an explanation but the lady wrestler probably wasn’t the best person to ask. With that the man turned to leave the poll. As he passed the Fab Five one said something to him: “Sir. You’re wearing your mask upside down.” He thought they had already discussed that. “It’s not covering your nose very well. I think you should adjust it before you interact with other people.” The only words he heard were ... “your nose...”
    “What’s that you say? My nose! My nose looks like a smashed potato? There’s nothing wrong with my nose! This is a noble nose! It was once well shaped. With time its experienced a number of honorable encounters. It’s not nice to make fun of someone’s nose. Think I’ll file a complaint with your supervisor.” With that the woman had had enough. Signaled Security who efficiently hustled the man out of the polling site. All this with the very first voter. No wonder Wisconsin was being trolled by all those TV bubble heads.

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