My students are very interested in the election. In our social studies classes, we watch CNN Student News every day, take notes, and have an in-depth discussion of the current events during our Friday class period.  Lately, our Fridays have consisted of intense debate and discussion on the elections.

Parents would be amused, horrified and possibly proud of the things their children are repeating. It is so funny to hear things their parents have told them about the candidates. We often do “whip around” opinions with each student sharing his or her quick 10 second comment. Always interesting.

Last week, my kids were all ears as I told them about my plans to vote after school. I told them about the process and what the ballot will look like. I went on and on about how there are certain procedures one must go through to vote. I told them how election judges are finicky about how things are done. I put great emphasis on why it’s important to know what to do and how to do it, and how there are always directions to read when you enter the polling place.

We’ve been doing the  tiring state testing at our school for the past couple of weeks, and the schedule has been altered to allow for groups of students to spend the allotted amount of time on these all-important tests. Class periods, during testing week, are sometimes a lot longer than they usually are.   I’d still like to meet the guys who came up with these tests, but since I don’t have a better idea, I will be quiet for now.  But I digress.

By the end of the day Tuesday, I was pooped for some reason. I could blame it on that PARCC test, on pushing 50, or on a variety of things.

Michelle and I decided to head up to the polling place after school, which happened to be our own church, and off we went. It was an unseasonably warm day. We had the windows down and we enjoyed the short little drive up to our beautiful church.

I had never voted at our church before, so it was a new experience. We went into our “precinct room,” usually a place for little ones and Sunday school. The election judges knew us, so we didn’t even have to show the voter’s card we dug out that morning. Ah, the perks of living in a small town.

We received our ballot and the “cover sheet.” I went to a booth and picked up the marker.  Hastily, for whatever reason, I began marking my choices with a nice, neat “X.” When I voted for the delegates, I accidentally chose four instead of three, so I marked one out. Surely they would overlook that.

A friend of mine was at the “feeder” machine where I would feed in my ballot. I was only supposed to show her my initials. I did, and then proceeded to feed my ballot in.  My ballot was rejected twice, the machine spitting my ballot back out as if it were made by a Democrat. I was puzzled.

“The machine doesn’t like this,” my friend said, pointing to the spot I marked out.  “And look, you’ve used an ‘X’ on each oval.  You were supposed to color them in.”

My friend was nice to me but took the opportunity to poke a little fun. I wearily laughed, made fun of myself, and remarked that I did nothing all day but preach the gospel of reading directions. I hung my head in shame and watched as my ballot was marked “SPOILED.” I got a new ballot and followed the directions, slinking out of the voting room with a red face.

“And you’re a school teacher?”