The Voting Machine

Making Contact

I thought about my goal for the shift. Fifty contacts. Five signed forms. Fifteen completed volunteer cards.

It was a prime location. Lots of foot traffic. As the first strangers approached, I got nervous. I braced myself for rejection. Why should these people stop and talk to a loser like me? Why should they do anything I asked of them? At Passion, I used to cold call strangers and convince them to pay their credit card bills. This was different. This was face-to-face.

I remembered the advice from David for me and the college kids at the campaign office.

Keep it relaxed. Keep it friendly. Never, ever get angry or negative no matter how rude they are. That's not who we are.

My first test of the day.

A wheel chair-bound old man in shabby clothes and a baseball cap. "I ain't going to vote," he declared. "Goddamn government. Just tax, tax, tax, and spend our money."

He clenched his weak, arthritic fist with rage. The thought of voting made his blood boil. The man was poor and sick. He probably paid no taxes. He was obviously living off of public healthcare programs. Still, he hated the government anyway.

"The government just wants to steal everything away from us. They want to control our lives. Next thing you know, the government will try to take over Medicare. When they run Medicare, that'll be the last straw!"

"Don't you know the government already runs Medicare?"

The man spit at me. "You and your socialist candidate can go to hell!"

I wiped his spit off my face. It was pretty impressive that he could hit me with such accuracy from his wheelchair. I wanted to scream at this idiot. Instead, I remembered David's words.

Keep it relaxed. Keep it friendly. Never, ever get angry or negative no matter how rude they are. I wished him a nice day as he rolled into the discount store.

The hours dragged on. The rejections and insults continued. It felt like I was stuck in a swamp full of mosquitoes, getting stung again and again and again.

"Leave me alone," one guy insisted. "I never sign anything on a sidewalk."

"It's a waste of time," a woman told me. "Voting never did anything to make my life better."

After a couple hours, I was ready to call it a day. My confidence was shattered to the point that I was questioning everything. What in the world was I doing here? Why did my life have to be so strange and hard? Why couldn't I just be a regular guy?

A regular guy just takes his paycheck, feeds his family, and enjoys life. He barbeques in the backyard and coaches his son's soccer games. He sits in a reclining chair and drinks beer and watches sports on a widescreen TV. He doesn't have some weird political cause. He doesn't spend his free time on baking-hot sidewalks in Las Vegas, trying to get total strangers interested in some concept like democracy. What if I didn't have to be such a freak? Wouldn't it be nice to have the simple, happy, satisfying life of a regular guy?

Yet I knew this wasn't going to happen.

There was no turning back.

There was no chance in hell that I'd ever have the life of a regular guy.

I was destined to be a misfit. I was destined to be different, out here on my own, getting ridiculed and rejected for cause that might never see the light of day.

I knew in my heart that the shoe fit, even if it was a clown shoe.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

It was the high-pitched, innocent voice of a girl transitioning to womanhood. She was petite, teenage, pretty, and olive-skinned. She was carrying a school backpack and the iPhone she'd just activated at a cellular shop.

"Why am I here? I am a volunteer for the Salinger campaign, helping people who want to vote in the upcoming election."

"I want to vote. Can you sign me up?"

"Are you 18?"

"No, but I will be by November."

"Then let me sign you up."

She smiled and entered her details into the form. Her name was Fatima Shahabi.

"I can't wait," she gushed excitedly, completing the registration form. "I like Salinger. I heard him speak once at our school. Can I help the campaign?" She pointed at my stack of volunteer cards.

"Of course."

She wrote down her e-mail address and tore off the stub with directions to our campaign office.

"I'll drop by after my final exams," she said.

Fatima looked at me with eyes so pure and hopeful.

"Thank you for doing this," she said.

"Doing what?"

"Helping me sign up to vote. You're not getting any money to stand out here and do this right? You're doing it because you believe in it. Most people I meet in this town, they don't care about the future. They don't care what happens to us."

The young girl had restored my spirits. The chance to leave a good impression on one stranger was rewarding.

Fatima was my only successful sign up on that day.