So today is Election Day all around America. Dozens of my friends on facebook and in their blogs or on their twitters or wherever are posting that they voted. Great. Good on ya.
But many of them are posting pictures of stickers that they got at their polling place. Complete with big shit-eating grins of how proud they are that they got them a sticker. For voting.
And some of them are pissed off that their polling place doesn't HAVE stickers.
To this, I say, What the hell do you need a sticker for? Are you in elementary school? Did you do a good job on your homework? Were you nice to a kid in the hallway and a teacher saw you and gave you a sticker as a reward?
What the hell, America? You're not five years old already. Grow up. I pooped today, did anyone give me a sticker? I ate lunch today... Any sticker for me? I did my job for 6 hours today, does that garner a sticker?
Look, it's your right as a citizen to vote. You register, you vote, you participate. If you choose not to participate, that's fine too. It's your right. You don't get rewarded with cute assed little stickers that you'll peel off and maybe stick in the trash or in a little chotchkes album or whatever.
Be fucking thankful no one cut your hand off for voting. Or shot at you. Or tried to blow up your polling station.
Just do it and get on with your life. And stop acting like you deserve a trinket to show everyone what a big boy or girl you are.
Agreed. But when voting with 6 and 3 year olds the stickers are a nice touch. This was the first time our polling location had them. I'd like to think that maybe (just maybe) one of those stickers encouraged or reminded someone else to vote. But I'm idealistic like that!
ReplyDeleteMaybe. Maybe I don't have little kids anymore and to be honest stickers NEVER impressed either of my kiddos. they'd just get peeled off and stuck to the inside of the trash can. but they did like the orange stickers they put on milk at market basket.
ReplyDeletei just think it perpetuates a childishness that our culture seems to love to embrace, and we all need to kind of just be more grown up about things? crying at age 52 that your polling place ran out of stickers (yes, one of my FB friends actually was that upset) really disturbs me.