dung upon my face

I headed to St. Paul with 140 extra names to give me a safe cushion. Just before I slipped onto the highway I was stopped behind a car with two bumperstickers. The first quoted the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi 2:3 – “Behold I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your face.” The second said: “Atheists make lousy suicide bombers.” I laughed but that was before the dung.

At the Secretary of State’s office the same young fellow who gave the forms took a look through the filled out forms I handed him and warned me that the people who had just put two digits like, 59, in the column for their year of birth might not be counted. That’s because it wasn’t possible to tell whether they meant that they were 59 years old or born in 1959. I protested that either way they were obviously over the age of 18. I was told that if I turned them in today I couldn’t just come in a day or two later with the rest of the names I needed if it turned out I was a few short. I’d have to start all over with only a day or two left before the deadline. It was turn them in now and take a chance that they would all be disqualified or come in after the weekend with enough signataures to make the whole petition count. I spent a few minutes and counted roughly 90 such two-digit signatures in the year of birth column.

I made a point of telling the people who signed my petition that they had to be eighteen so it was frustrating to face the prospect of returning home and adding more names but I had no choice. I knew that there were about twenty names that wouldn’t count. That left my cushion at only about thirty signatures.

I called Claudia and told her I wouldn’t be able to join her in Grand Rapids on Monday because I’d be driving back to the Secretary of State’s office. Now I need to gather another hundred signatures to give myself a bigger margin. Its going to be baking hot tommorw. Dung upon my face indeed.

While Claudia and I watched the PBS Friday news shows we searched phone books for the phone numbers of the two digit people on my list. I’ll try to call them and get their year of birth to add to the petition. I found phone numbers for about 60 of the 90 two digit signers.

I have to remember to channel my irritation into working my tush off.