The Crayon Smuggler at The Voting Booth

I voted today. And while I am incredibly proud I did it and feel lucky to be able to do so, I think I would rather tie an angry honey badger to my face while jump roping with a hive of yellow jackets rather than take my kids and go solo again.*

You might recall that Sterling chose this week for potty training. And at this point we have it pretty nailed, but I still drop everything and rush like a pothead for a Taco Bell the moment she announces "momma, I pee potty".

Which she happened to do today right as we made it to the front of a 40 minute voting line. Twice.

And both times were friggin false alarms.

Both. Times.

Currently, she feels the need to be completely bare from the waist down to take care of business.

So each time, we dropped everything and rushed to the nearest bathroom, where I then spent roughly 10 minutes begging her to "pee potty" while she crawled around, on the floor, practicing her lion roar as she appreciated the bathroom acoustics and Ben did his best to reach the tampon box.

It was exactly as absurd and disgusting as it sounds.

And because we had to go back to the end of the line TWICE, you might think that waiting a total of 80 minutes would have made us good at waiting. It didn't. What it DID do was make us bored. And entertaining.

First, there was Sterling's insistence that anyone of any color at all was Obama. Including the two Asian ladies ahead of us in line. And I was stumped on how to explain the difference to her in terms that a two year old would both grasp AND be safe in repeating. Because she still didn't understand that we weren't boating.

Second, there was the damn concession stand selling damn donuts next to the damn line and I didn't have any damn money with me. And we had been waiting for damn EONS. Any idea how many times a toddler can repeat the word "donut"? Slightly less than they can offend people by calling them Obama. Slightly.

Third, when you are a toddler stuck in a line for long periods and your mom has no good explanation for why, the enterprising get creative and perform for the audience. It's impressive how many laughs you can get when you are cute and dance and sing in line.

Even more impressive when you do acrobatics off the back of your brother's stroller. And when you suddenly take off screaming "stinky poopy bud-dy, stinky poopy" down the hallway?

That gets the best responses of all. But when you are the mom of that entertaining little minx? Somehow it stops being quite so entertaining :/

And the icing on the cake is that when I took my shirt off tonight, I discovered a green crayon in my bra. Absolutely no idea how it got in there, but it raises questions that I really don't know if I am ready to ask.

Which is why next time I am taking a voting buddy. Or getting buzzed before I go. Not certain which, but maybe both...

* This is what is known as sarcasm. Not familiar with it? Buckle up baby.


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