Super Tuesday and the Social Butterflies

My husband voted on the way to work. I decided I'd go a little later and undo the damage he did that morning.

Our polling place is a nearby elementary school, and the poll workers are all my neighbor ladies, and only two of them do I vaguely know. The first is Poll Worker Number One aka Mary Kay Lady. The second is Poll Worker Number Two aka Sunday School Teacher that called my house forever after I visited her church once many years ago, trying to get me to come back.

I want to vote. I don't want to go there with those ladies to vote.
Go. Not go. Civil duty wins out.
I give myself a big pep talk....c'mon you don't care about running into a few old gossipy ladies, do you?

I arrive at the polling place. Poll Worker aka Mary Kay looks at me in line. Then she looks at me again.

She says, "Hey, I didn't recognize you. How are you doing?"

Me- "Fine. How have you been?"

She- "You look good. You've lost a lot of weight!"

Me--"thanks."

I give my driver's license to PW Number Three. She looks at it and says, "You live in our neighborhood?" She reads off my address. "I live on the same street."

Me- "Oh."

She- "Which one do you live in?"

Me- I repeat house number she just read.

She- "Whose house did you buy?"

Me- "Huh?"

She- "Who did you buy your house from?"

Me- mumbling..."Uh, Julie somebody. I don't really remember."

She- "You don't know who you bought your house from?"

Me- "Well, it was a long time ago. I've lived there eight years."

She--"What? Why don't I know you?"

All the other poll worker neighbor ladies who have been following along with our conversation gather around the table.

Me- I say nothing. I'm thinking...You don't know me because I don't come to the homeowners meetings, because I don't know a single neighbor's name except Mary Kay lady, and that is only because my ex knew her husband from the Masons, and she mails me MK catalogs in the mail from time to time.

Poll Worker Number Two- Sunday School Teacher--"Which one do you live in?" (She doesn't know me either, I guess.)

I repeat house number again.

All the ladies look at each other.

PW Number Three- Determined to solve the mystery--"You've lived there since 2000?"
Me-"Uh huh."

PW Number Two- "I don't know you either. I thought I knew everyone." (She does, and she knows me, at least I thought she did.)

PW Number One aka Mary Kay Lady "I didn't think you lived in our neighborhood anymore."

Me- "Oh yeah. Same place. Long time."

They all are giving either other strange looks. I grab my ballot and run into the booth.
Voices from outside.

"Who is she?"

"That's Kathy. She lives next to the (mumbling) family."

"I've never seen her before."

"Me neither."

"What's her last name again?"

MK Lady-"I don't know. I think it was "O-something" but she's changed it a few times, I think."

"Divorce? Oh."

MK Lady--"She's sort of a recluse, I think."

"She must be. Otherwise, I would have known her."

"She doesn't come to the meetings? Why doesn't she come to the meetings?"

MK lady says, "She came a couple of times years ago, but I think all the arguing everyone did back then got to her."

"I can't believe I don't know her. I know everyone."

"I've never even seen her outside."

I run from the booth, throw my ballot in the machine and go to my car. I make myself breath slowly so my heart will quit pounding. Then I drive home, relieved I don't have to do that for awhile.

The time before this when I voted, the comment I heard when I was leaving was from "Poll Worker Who Was the Receptionist from My Family Doctor's Office" and she said, "She's a loner. She's on anti-depressants!"