Happy National Voter Registration Day!
And here we are again: the day that we all make sure we're registered to cling excitedly to pencils tethered by wool to wooden partitions and make our mark on sheets of coloured paper - and on the political landscape of our country! Fine, voting isn't quite as exhilarating as I'm remembering it and, even for the most pin-striped among us, it's difficult not to become a tiny bit bored by the media coverage in all its grey-suited wonder. So if you still need convincing why you should most definitely be registered to vote, here's a guide to surviving a day of elections come May 7th.
Get your ass to a polling station! Every polling day, the same frayed clichés are dragged out as reasons for wasting a perfectly valuable vote. One vote can make a difference; yes, I know they're all a bit homogenous but just pick the one with the jaunty moustache, if necessary; if you work/don't work, pay tax/don't, break the law/play by the rules - politics affects you.
It's half an hour out of the year to do something productive for society; so feel entitled to take that thirty minutes back by not doing the ironing next week. Take that, social conventions!
If you'd trust a candidate (even just for a minute, on a good day, with a policeman hiding in a tree nearby) with your purse, parents, pills or the progress of your little prince/princess, they're probably worthy of your vote.
Take a balloon with you: balloons make everything more cheerful. Draw a face on it, if you get lonely.
Voting is for hopeful people: those who see a bad situation and want to do any little they can to change it. It's for those who are happy and those who aren't; those who choose not to complain, but instead to act; those who worry about the past, present or future - and those who don't. Voting is for those who are still interested in life.