Why I'll Never Vote Again

Today, as I stood before a class of geology majors to make a presentation on the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964, I thought to say, "If it looks as if I spent the morning rolling around under a muddy truck in a gravel parking lot, it's only because that IS how I spent the morning."

Yes, Wendy and Ian and I left the house early so that we could vote like good citizens before I was dropped off at school for a big day of presentations and meetings with thesis directors. I even wore nicer clothes for the event.
Of course, nothing can go smooth on such a day. We exited the car in the parking lot and were greeted by an alarmingly loud hissing noise issuing forth from our front driver's-side tire. I passed my hand over the spot and realized that the leak was at least pencil-sized. That would slow us up a bit. We let it be for the moment and ran inside.
We arrived at the voting area unware if we were even registered to vote since we received no notification that our registration had been received when we filled it out three months ago, so we asked the nice person of undisclosed age and gender if our names were on the list. Our names were not, but where did we live, the person asked. On campus was our reply which thoroughly confused the attendant.
"But what street?"
"No street. Just on campus."
"Uh huh. What street is that."
"The street doesn't matter. Is this the right place to vote if we live on campus?"
"I don't know. What street do you live on?"
"Campus has its own precinct. Are we in the right place or not?"
"I don't know. What street do you live on?"
"We don't live on a street. We live in an apartment on campus."
Lucky for all of us, another person nearby overheard and said, "ISU campus has its own precinct. You can vote down the hall."
It turned out that we were registered, and Wendy and I took turns voting and watching Ian. When I finished, I took him outside to get to work on the tire.
It took me 15 mintues to realize that I didn't have all of the tools I needed to release the spare and change the flat. Eventually, Wendy showed up and helped me read the instructions that helped me locate the tools burried under loads of gear and carpeting. I got to work while Wendy walked Ian around the parking lot to prevent him from learning any new vocabulary words involved in changing a tire.
I lay on the ground willying around with the little toy jack that comes with a Ford, trying to get the car up off the ground. While I was able to raise the car high enough to remove the completely flat tire, I was not able to raise it high enough to put the spare on. The jack was too short.
Lucky for me, I had an audience. Not only were there hundreds of senior citizens passing by my dirty legs protruding from the car and commenting on the sorry condition of my tire, there was an ISU maintanance worker who ignored my claim to have the situation under control when he noticed that my jack was clearly too short.
It we used his jack to lift the car high enough to reposition my jack under a spot previously too low for a jack, then maxed the thing out in order to barely sqeeze the spare tire on.
I thanked the man, and he moved on to other good deeds. Wendy and Ian dropped me off at school, glad to be rid of the harbinger of bad luck.
Anyway, none of this would have happened if we had stayed home and not voted.