Why I Didn't Vote?

I consider voting my civic duty, so I'd better have a pretty good reason for not voting.

Short summary: 4+ hour commute = no time to vote

Longer missive: I picked Sam up at 3:30pm. Beltway was fine, but Rt. 50 seemed to have a large assortment of cars, pieces of cars and smaller pieces of of cars on the shoulder. This should have been a clue.

I made it as far as the Annapolis Mall at a cautious crawl, but after that traffic wasn't moving at all. People were backing down the shoulders to take exits. I made my way to the exit, thinking that I'd cut through Annapolis. Two hours later, I was still sitting in Annapolis, pretty lost, since I'd circled around looking for a street that wasn't blocked, only finding streets that were more blocked. I really had to go to the potty, so I pulled into an Elementary School that was open for voting. Oh YEAH - election day. Well, thank goodness for that. A very nice volunteer gave my hungry Sam a banana and showed us to the potty. God bless that sweet woman. Hungry two year olds that have been in the car for 2+ hours are not pretty!

I let Sam run up and down the hall until I was satisfied that we'd compromised the election, and then we took off again. Oh, note to self: Parking your Cavalier on a soft shoulder = not such a good idea.

We made it across the Severn River Bridge - the UNTREATED Severn River Bridge - and I thought we were home free. I had to cross another concrete apron to make it onto Rt. 2 and my car slid sideways and we sailed across it. When I hit asphalt on the other side my tail end threatened to come around in one direction, then the other. Sam squealed. I probably squealed. Then, all the sudden we were going forward again, headed in the right direction even. That's not what I expected moments before, but I like fun surprises. Sam stopped squealing, we didn't hit anything, we went on our way.

So, more than 4 hours after we departed daycare, we arrived home, mostly unscathed. Mostly. Not that I'd go back out anyway, but the polls are closed.