Time to vote!

Have you voted yet? If not, you should. I am wearing my Obama button today just because I can. I see that Shawna already beat me to a post about election day—she’s just too quick! Tonight will definitely be interesting as we watch the results come in. Yay democracy!

I had a strange experience recently regarding politics. First of all, I’m totally in favor of people forming their own political opinions. I have my beliefs, but I can assure that they are the complete opposite of many people in my life. My father is Republican (or so he says… I suspect he’s lying to himself) and many of my closest friends are the most conservative people you’ll ever meet. That’s never been an issue for me even though I am, by most definitions, a raging liberal. Luckily I have the right to believe what I want to believe. Yay America!

The town I grew up in is small and conservative. This past weekend I stopped to visit my parents on my way to Boise for the half marathon and on my way out of town I went to a gas station to fill my tank up. Currently my car is sporting an Obama bumper sticker. It’s also sporting an awesome sticker in the shape of Oregon with a green heart in the middle as well as a band-aid bumper sticker where I hit a parked car awhile back. I’m a classy broad, really. I didn’t even think about this until the gas station attendants proceeded to begin making derogatory statements about Obama… and then about ME! Clearly, I had my window rolled down. Clearly, they meant for me to hear them. D-bags.

Luckily I decided to be a bigger person and just ignored them. I hate confrontation anyway. I have no problem with them having a different opinion than I do—my problem was that they decided to voice it that way. There is a time and a place for politics and being disrespectful (and downright mean) while helping a customer is not one of them. I thought it would stop there and I really wasn’t very concerned. I was in a town with McCain/Palin signs on every corner so I suppose things like this can be expected. But then the pump stopped and they asked if I’d like the tank topped off—I responded, “Yes, please.” (Look how polite I am! Even though they were being rude!) One attendant then put in a whopping FOUR MORE CENTS and said, “That’s enough for her. You know Obama wouldn’t even top it off at all, he’d share it with everyone.” The men laughed, and one took my receipt, shoved it in my window, and walked away without another word.

How is that okay? Just because I don’t have the same opinions they do they decided it was acceptable to act like that? A huge reason why this annoyed me so much is that if they don’t top the tank off at least a little bit (certainly more than four cents) my tank doesn’t go all the way up to the full marker, and holy CRAP that is annoying.

These men were jerks. I wrote a letter about it to the gas station manager because I was that bothered. I don’t care what they believe in—they should believe in respecting a person’s right to their own opinion as well.

And that is one reason why I was so excited to have voted. No matter how ridiculously obnoxious that experience was, at least I know I have the right to choose my candidate. Yay voting!