funny thing happened to me on the way home from the polls. (i will get back to voting in a second).

I entered into a store called the Kitchen Warehouse today to pick up some sock desecration and demolition prevention devices and some carpet stain remover.  Given that an SDDPD is a little furry mouse that allows Isaac to take out his almost horrific amounts of destructive energy thereby diverting his attention from my socks, do you think that these two items would have been clue enough to the cashier that i have a pet?
   The Kitchen Warehouse is slightly improperly misnamed.  it is certainly not that it does not have a warehouse's fill of kitchen stuff.  it does indeed have a stack as large as Cheop's Tomb of all things spatula, tea-towel and verily just about everything that has ever even been set upon a counter in a kitchen at one time or another.  it is the fact that all of this stuff is stuck into the size of a medium sized shoe store.  Cramped is a serious understatement for this place.  But that is ok, i love it. so much in so close of a space to buy buy buy.  They are not even into the modern age and as you come to the front with each item they write down the name of it (not even an inventory number) in a paper list and then ring it up in a cash register.  There is an off chance that someone, at some point, each night maybe, enters these entries into a computer in someone's home but my guess is that there is a small gnarled man chained in the basement entering each item in blood into a huge black ledger.
   So anyways as i shuffled past shuddering about to topple stacks of tupperware and incense on my way to the counter there is a grey haired man of about sixty just finishing up with the counter guy.  He was a nice enough looking guy, obviously someone's grandfather based upon the fact that he was asking the counter guy to take the price tags off the two small tonka type toys. As the counter guy turned one of them over the grandfather noticed that one fo them had a UPC code sticker on the bottom.  He asked, and i wondered at the time why there was trepidation in his voice, 'you didn't scan those tags did you?'  Counter boy replies that he had not, that they don't scan anything as they don't have scanners.
   Then the Grandfather mentions that there is Olympic Voter guy up the street for the Yes side.  He has, ummm, what i would best describe as disgust in his voice as he says it.  All of a sudden he is exclaiming his hatred of all things Olympics but only in about 3 words and then goes into how it would be better that they get the kids living on the streets into homes.  I see no reason to do anything but smile at his small tirade and other than the vehemence his point seems rational enough.  The counter boy, showing his No leaning actually finds solidarity and says, 'well i certainly have no particular urge to vote yes.'
   He is young.  he has not yet had a chance to learn the lessons in life that i have.  If you give a freak in public an in, they will take it and more.  All of a sudden grandfather is off on a tangent (or not so much an actual tangent i guess since it was semi-topical) about how he loves his country but that there wasn't no one out there with any right to tell him how to vote.  That he would not take shit like that.  That there were other like minded people out there.  That some of them were military types.  Counter boy and i were just holding back our nervous laughter.  you know the type that helps you to cope with weird situations.  Then he says, 'bye, have a nice day' and is gone.
   As soon as he is gone counter boy and i let out a breath and let our tension drain.  He sort of snorts and shrugs his shoulders and i say something along the lines of, 'you have a nice day too, or don't, i am sure we don't care.'  All of  sudden the tension is gone, counter guy finds solidarity in me and rings my stuff through. 
   As i am just typing stuff into the interac pad, and just as we finished laughing about the guy once again over something counter guy says, Grandpa comes back.  Our laughter could not have vanished quicker.  He sort of looks confused for a second and then pulls a black comb, you know like the Fonz used to use, out of a container on the counter filled with a mish-mash of containers.  he sort of pokes it towards the guy and asks him how much it costs.  As he his finishing up with my transactions counter guy takes the time to find the price is 40 cents.  Then Grandpa asks once again if he would have to ring it through a UPC scanner (don't for a second think he knew the term UPC, he used a different word, perhaps like, 'one of them scanner things')  Assured once again that they have no such technology he says, 'good, i'll take it.'  (So do you think that even if there was someone out there monitoring UPC scanners, would it be the end of the world if they knew that someone, somewhere, actually still buys black back picket combs?  Could there be some sort of alienesque conspiracy that reminds us that UPC scanners actually scan your retina so they can follow our movement patterns and what we buy?  And that they might assume from his purchase that he is taking some tissue and building one of those little comb mouth organs out of his purchase.  and that from this they could conclude that he is some sort of hippy bohemian music lover?)
   Counter guy, being a good counter guy, asks him to wait a moment as i am just finishing up my transaction. This delay, of course, allows grandpa to start a tirade about not using computers in any way.  and that his inability to use computers of course makes him unemployable in this world.  As if, of course, that computers are a conspiracy to drive the honest man out of work. 
   Done now, and not wanting in any way to see where this tirade could take us, i gather my things and say to counter guy, 'bye, have a good weekend.'  He smiles and says to have the same.  Somehow though Grandpa takes my parting to include him as well and somehow, my saying such a thing seems to make me a kindred soul to him.  Perhaps in his mind only the honest normal militant anti-democracy splinter group people would still have such courtesy.  But anyways, he makes very clear that i am his friend as he suggests i have a good day and i leave, with the feeling that he wanted to shake my hand.
   you will note the important part.  I left!  Poor counter guy didn't get to. i hope he is ok.

So today was vote in the Olympic plebiscite day.  i am still not sure that this plebiscite was a proper thing to have allowed to happen but that is nether here nor there.  today i got to go out and vote.  it was neat. it was nice and sunny when i left my apt.  and even though i am about 10 blocks from the polling station i noticed that there was a general trend of people moving towards the station.  as i got closer the concentrations grew.  it was kind of uplifting.  like there was some sort of public concert.  inside things were crowded and busy but i still got in and out in about 5 minutes.  i felt good after i had voted.
   Oddly enough this vote is one of the few things that i have voted for since as far back as the Oui/Non referendum that i have felt any political passion about.  Elections seem to make so little difference (although i guess it would be very difficult to say that Campbell is not making a difference).  But this is something i feel strongly about.
   At work, there are about 25 people or so on my floor, or in my dept rather.  I think that i am the only person of any of those that was a Yes vote.  I started being a Yes with only one reason, the North/South skytrain route.  i wasn't very ardent or vocal.  But then the No's started to argue with me.  Right from the start there were 3 or 4 of them that were very passionately against.  Now when you talk to me, i am ardently for and can list a number of reasons that i feel make the games a good thing.  hell, i went on TV to support them.  Even the most ardent of the No's was unwilling to even apply.
   You know what the cool irony of it all is though?  Of the 25 people on my floor, i am the only one living in Vancouver proper.  Only i get to vote.  Sweet sweet irony.

   One observation that this race has led me to come to is one of ethics and negativity.  I have talked to a very large number of No people and some yes people.  Almost every No person i have talked to has, in some way or another, suggested unethical ways that the vote should be helped along.  Ballot stuffing, illegal voting and etc.  One guy at work tried very hard to get another women to vote even though she knew that she wasn't allowed to legally.  She had agreed right up until the day before when she changed her mind.  Conversely i never heard one Yes person suggest doing anything improper. 
   I can't believe the difference is one of confidence.  I never thought and i never heard anything even remotely like saying that this vote was a shoe-in for either side.  The polls went back and forth each way almost from day to day.  What did happen?  700 volunteers came out for the yes side.  25 came out for the No.  (this leaves aside the question of monetary sponsorship, of which the Yes had a lot, but those were free donations from businesses that see the good in the games).
   Is there something about being the political underdog that makes it ok to subvert and set aside morality?  I don't suggest that the political mainstream traditionally fights fair in any way and it is very much easier to be on a high horse when you are sitting comfortably in power but you never see them putting on a violent demonstration.  Isn't the very core premise of democracy that if you a side group with less support that you are less likely to have the power to effect your changes?  Where does it say that in democracy if you are less likely to win that are less curtailed by ethics? 
   i found this trend very disturbing.   Especially in a plebiscite that i feel only has the remotest ties to fair democratic process with huge advantages to side NO in the first place.

   On the other hand, according to the advance stats, more people are coming out for the plebiscite than did for the municipal elections a few months ago and those were some of the best turn out results in years. kind of heartening.

just in case i wasn't clear, today i voted and i voted yes.