Every vote counts!

Another Thursday has come and gone.
The days are getting a little easier for me.

I think Cowboy misses his Squeaky as much as Badger and I do.
He came into the bedroom before he went to work talking about how Squeaky would paw him for a bite to eat, and none of the other cats will.
None of the other cats will even sit and watch Cowboy eat.
That was just a Skunk thing.

As Badger says, these other cats don't talk.
Skunk was very vocal.
Carl and Sasha will have spells when they suddenly start running through the house yowling.
Lucifer is getting kitty dementia, and occasionally he'll start crying.
Fox and Coyote will yowl if you lock them up in a room.
But they won't have conversations with you like Skunky.

None of them are cuddlers like he was.
Badger trained that darn cat to be carried like a baby.
If you stood at a chair, he'd hop on your freaking shoulder for a ride.
Skunk was a very unique cat.

We did get to town and got groceries.
We’re never breaking Cowboy of that habit.
If we keep stocking up a bit each week, we’ll have food put back in case Tennessee surprises us with another rare blizzard.
I suppose that’s one upside.
We just have to remember to actually use it up and not let it all go bad.

I did something today I’ve never done in my life.
I went and voted.
I vote in presidential, not local, elections.
However, Badger made it perfectly clear that we were voting today.

We ran into a bit of trouble because her name and my name are so close together.
Except for Raven and Cowboy, the rest of us are J.A.A.s.
Peacock, Heron, Badger, and me.
The person at the book couldn’t find Badger’s name with all those names that looked alike.

I finished casting my ballot, noticed that Badger wasn't in line to cast hers.
I walked over to where we had to sign in, and saw that they had pulled her aside, and were on the phone with someone.
They said they couldn't find her name.
I waited until the woman finished her call, and told her that Badger absolutely was listed in the poll books.

We went over and I pointed to it.

It seems to me that the person checking the poll book needs to be able to see the names clearly and flip through the pages without trouble.
The woman helping us looked to be in her late seventies or early eighties, and she was on oxygen.
She had a hard time bending over the book, her hands were shaking, and she seemed to struggle with the small print.
It slowed everyone down.

I’m not trying to be hateful toward someone older.
But if a job is hard for a person to manage, and it’s an important one, maybe they should move to a different volunteer spot.
The poll book has tiny print, and the names run together.
I’d have trouble with it myself.

Oh, and the reason we voted?
Spite, pure spite.

One of the people on the ballot has been in office for about fifteen years.

He’s been active on the town’s Facebook page, and when someone asks a fair question, nothing hateful, like “You promised this, that, or the other. Why haven’t you followed through yet?”

He keeps coming across as snarky, the guy is just incredibly unprofessional.

He got really snarky with me over what was simply a perfectly polite question.
He posted a video saying he was going to do this, that, and the other in this town, so I asked why he hadn’t done it in all the years he’s been in office and what his plans were moving forward.

And he popped off with “Well Idk Where You’ve Been for the Last 16 years.”
Um, like I’m not an elected official.
What does that have to do with anything?

So, you know what?
Off with his head, sort of.

I climbed out of my little hermit shack, tugged my little turtle shell around me, and went over to vote his rear end out of office.
Badger and I must not have been the only ones who were tired of his smart‑aleck attitude and all the promises he never kept.
Votes came in, and he was voted out by a landslide.
I’m still not sure why he wasn’t voted out before.

Power to the people, I guess.

Now Badger is threatening to drag me back in November to vote for governor.

This is Peacock and his wife’s fault, all theirs.
They’re deep into politics, and now they’ve got Badger fired up about it, and now she’s dragging me along for the ride.

While Cowboy took his before work nap and Heron watched his farm show, Badger and I went in her room to watch a really, really weird show about King Arthur.
She's the only one with a DVD player now.
That show, oh my gosh!
She said it was a waste of nearly two hours.
I say it was two hours well spent.
Merlin stole the show.

We got Cowboy off to work, and the rest of the evening went along like it normally does.
Yeah, mostly TV with a little bit of playing on the computer for me.

Cowboy called on his break, as is usual.
He said he finally figured out why he’s ended up on this shift.

I’ll try to paraphrase.

Basically, when the new company bought out the old company, every time they buy a factory, they find ways to get rid of the old employees and bring in new hires.

Well, Cowboy has been down there forty-eight years.
It would be hard as heck for them to suddenly fire an employee with as perfect a record as he has.

So, you can’t fire him, but hey, he’s an older man.
Let’s move him to third shift.
Let’s pretend we’re honoring him with a promotion to a salaried worker and give him a bit of a raise, but move him to third shift.

With luck, he won’t be able to handle that, and he’ll retire, and we can replace him with a new hire.

What they don’t realize is that he has a wife who is ten years younger who needs insurance, and the only affordable insurance is through the plant.

So for now, retirement isn’t in the cards.

Just from listening to Cowboy, they’re making things harder for him, and he’s getting very frustrated.
But his hands are tied until we figure out what to do for insurance for me.

With that, I'm heading to bed.
It looks like Heron is ready to go to sleep.
He's still on my couch.
I wish I could move him into Raven's room.
He could use the privacy, but Raven has never fully moved out.