This afternoon my friend reminded me that we’d be out of town Tuesday and could not vote. Since this election in Arizona is very important, I wanted to make sure I voted. We discovered that we could  go to the local community college to early vote. I figured it wouldn’t be too busy on a Thursday at 4PM. I thought wrong.

I had Claire with me and we entered the library where they were voting at about 4:25PM. My friend was actually a few people in front of me in line, and there was a nice sign that said "Voters, please use your library voices." I don’t think that 19 month olds have library voices! At first, Claire just wanted to run around in circles by me, and then she wanted to run off. I was ok as long as I could see her, but then she was getting upset. The nice lady in front of me told me I could chase her all I wanted, and she would keep my spot in line. So eventually I got Claire to sit at a table and draw on a piece of paper from my pocket. This lasted probably 20 minutes and in the meantime I realized they only had ONE ballot printer and the wait was over an hour –from a spot far up in line!

In the next hour she drew, ran, screamed "bye bye!", and kept losing her shoes. We eventually got past the pillars in the library and I held her and got back in line. My friend, Christy, kept trying to talk to Claire, but then Claire got upset. She began crying and wouldn’t stop for about half an hour. Finally a lady who had just voted asked if she could go to the vending machine to get Claire some pretzels. It was a welcome gesture, and I readily agreed. Claire had been very loud up until the time she brought back the pretzels.

About the same time she got food, the older man near the front of the line told the voting worker to let me go next. When they told me, I was very relieved and moved up. After I got to the front of the line, I still had to wait another half an hour for them to print my actual ballot. In the meantime Christy and I kept Claire busy with pretzels and flowers drawn on a scrap of paper.

I was able to finally vote (go JANET!) and then we left TWO HOURS AFTER WE ARRIVED!