voting irony

life, as they say, is full of ironies. one prime example would be my voting history. i can vividly remember discussing current politics in my ninth grade social studies class and our teacher pointing out that the next time election day arrived, we'd all be able to exercise our civic duty and vote. at the time, the mere thought was thrilling. we tittered at our desks excitedly, thinking of the distant future, when we'd be adults and full-fledged citizens and off doing far more important things than sitting in a trailer being taught social studies by the football coach. and then, of course, it hit me: i would actually be six weeks shy of being old enough to vote in the 1992 election. as with anything bad that happens to a teenager, it was all my parents' fault; i cursed them for making me skip a grade and thereby inserting me into a peer group in which i'd always be the youngest, and swore that i would never inflict such pain on a child of my own. i cried myself to sleep that night -- melodrama was my middle name -- but by the next morning, it was forgotten. our social studies class had moved on to discuss the upcoming friday night game and the makeup of the judicial system (in that order) and i never gave it another thought. by the time 1992 actually rolled around, i graduated from high school and, on a hot day in mid-august, drove the three hours up to virginia to begin my freshman year at the university of richmond. besides being consistently rated as the most beautiful college campus in the country [i can see chris rolling his eyes now, as i remind him yet again of this fact], UR had the national spotlight for a week that fall. on october 15, 70 million people tuned in to watch george bush sr., bill clinton, and ross perot battle it out in the very first town-hall format presidential debate ever, all from our own small (but beautiful, mind you) campus. so the irony of it is, of course, that in the midst of this monumental event, where the national media descended upon us, where we walked past famous news anchors with their microphones and cameras, where we witnessed three powerful men and their secret service agents and bodyguards and entourages walk mere yards away from us, where the entire student body was rife with interest and opinions and emotions that somehow ego-centric college student bodies believe are theirs alone (and nowhere more so than where such an event is taking place) ... well, the irony is that i couldn't vote. on election day, i happened to find myself in the registrar's office, begging for mercy so i could drop my physics-for-majors class. really, just because you're a math major does not mean you should be a physics major, and whoever thought that if you're good in math then you must also good in science had obviously never met me, and i was pretty much drowning: this was my argument. (i could go on, but suffice it to say my pleas fell on deaf ears, i stuck it out, and wound up with a C+, which was the lowest grade i ever received in college. truth be told, i think it had to do as much with my lack of scientific prowess as it did with the fact that it was an 8:15 a.m. class, including fridays, which shouldn't even be legal.) anyway, in the middle of this futile conversation the registrar woman glanced down at my records, paused, and then informed me that to the best of her knowledge, i was the only student at the university of richmond who was not old enough to vote. "isn't that ironic?" she chuckled, as she gestured toward a copy of the college newspaper with a picture of the three candidates on the front page. i walked back to my dorm that afternoon, dejected for being forced to remain in this awful class, and then even more dejected since i was the only person within a five-mile radius without an "i voted" oval sticker proudly displayed on my shirt. ever since then, i have voted. i went to excruciating lengths to vote two years later while living in spain, when there wasn't even a glamorous or exciting national election to follow. i mailed off my absentee ballot across the atlantic and wore my very first "i voted" sticker, which -- here's a last bit of irony -- hardly anyone around me could even translate. but i did all of this. there's just something about being told you cannot do something that really makes you want to do it. i hope i never forget that sense of frustration. minorities and women dealt with that frustration for far too long for me to take it lightly now. no, i'll never forget my right and my duty as an american citizen. come hell or high water, i will always be a voter.