Stories from the Campaign Trail finale

I did nearly get chased while knocking on doors as well. It was one of the last houses I knocked on and the lady that answered saw my Romney sticker and immediately began yelling at me so much her young son had to be the one to point out that she "shouldn't be rude!" Even as I started backing away, making it known that I got it! She wasn't voting Republican! - she continued to yell about how would I feel if she knocked on my door, blah blah blah. 

And I'm sorry, yes - I knocked on your door. I didn't strangle your cat or key your car. You have a doorbell on your house - I rang it. Sue me. You have the option of not answering your door at all. (Next time, I'm totally keying her car... JUST KIDDING!) 

But choosing to exercise the option of just not opening your door did not occur to the people in this area. Other folks campaigning with us said they encountered everything from a man opening the door in nothing but a speedo, to a woman sticking her head out the 2nd floor window from her shower to yell down that she couldn't get the door right then. 

Just ignore the bell, folks. Trust me, I'll happily just leave a door-hanger and jump right back in my clown's pocket and move on.

There was one house, however, where I was glad the person (we'll call him Hot Guy) opened the door. ...for a second, anyway. Rebekah and I switched off all day on who would do the talking, and would jot down the person's answers. (we had to ask questions about their intent to vote. It got to the point where I felt like I was saying "yes and what time do you plan to vote on election day? What are you planning on wearing? Do you believe you will have anything stuck in your teeth at the time of your voting experience?....." I got tired of hearing myself....)

I also just got tired, period. Which brings us back to Hot Guy. Hot Guy opens his door and I was trying desperately to ask "can Governor Romney count on your support" but I could not get it out. I stammered "Can Romney.." then I got tripped up in my head about the fact that I just referred to a presidential candidate as "Romney" as if we are frat brothers. Meanwhile Hot Guy keeps staring at me with an amused look on face. I try again "Can the support...governor....can I count ...support...." finally Rebekah has to jump in and explain that it had been a long day....

Sigh.

But I wasn't the only one having trouble staying coherent. At another house, the person I was with blurts out "we are here for the Ryan/Romney campaign!" then immediately shoots me a look like, "did I really just demote Mitt Romney to the Vice President portion of this ticket?" So we all had issues.

I had other issues as well. One house we stopped at had a man wearing a baseball cap with writing in another language on it. He was super friendly and at one point he pointed to his hat and asked, "Do you know what language this is?" And I've traveled fairly extensively and I've definitely seen that writing before but in my tired state, couldn't figure out where, so I guessed - "Arabic?"

It was Hebrew.

Yep. If you are trying to win friends, you definitely want to mix up those two groups of people: Arabs and Jews. I am awesome. The man's face agreed.

Anyway, we move on to another neighborhood and this one. is. niiii-eeece. I'm so busy looking dreamily at these huge houses that I barely realize how cold I'm getting. But it was getting super cold, so much so that I finally breakdown and put on the big headband thingy I brought just in case. I never wear headbands, I don't think I look very good in them, so I ask Rebekah if I look stupid. She cocks her head and surmises "No. You look like a rich skier." Which, given the neighborhood, we agreed was probably a good look. Here's the final outfit:

Pointing to my campaign sticker

I posted that on my Facebook and my friend - a prominent Democrat - posted something about how much I looked Republican in that photo because "ain't no one in the Democratic headquarters dressed that well." 

Ha! At least we could continue to joke with each other through the election. You know, instead of ending our friendship in a fiery crash of political dissent -- which I feel like probably did happen to some people.

All in all, the campaign was a fun experience. Even the dreaded bus trip back had bright moments, like when they showed the movie Elf, or when the guy across the aisle asked to borrow Rebekah's phone because he had somehow accidentally dropped his in a cocktail he had apparently made himself on the bus ride up. (That happened to be the same guy who nearly fought a man wearing pajamas while door knocking -- makes sense, right?)

In any case, I'm just glad the election is over and I have four long years to decide whether I ever want to go door knocking again....

Stories from the Campaign Trail Part 2

After a long day of knocking on doors, we would go back to the campaign office to make phone calls. So while it was hard enough to talk to strangers all day face to face, you then get to "rest" while speed dialing more strangers. I sat there trying to read the names staring back at me on the automated phone screen and stuttered out hesitantly a "Good evening, is ...Brian Jones there?" "...Mary Smith?" "...Ah-neeesh Chop...too..tur...todo...doo..reee? o? ee? there?...." (It was those types of incidents when I hoped the person wasn't actually home and thus spared my horrific pronunciation.)

Then we'd get the people who would just cheerily state that if they get one more call like this, they were just not going to vote at all, thank you very much!

I'm really feeling good now!

We finally went to bed and woke up the next day to start knocking on doors and ride in some interesting stranger's car all over again.

Thankfully, the stranger we got this time was not as chatty, and not as crazy. I.e., he didn't say things like "Yeah, the Democrats are early voting because they'll do anything they can to cheat!"

Ummmm, sir, I understand you believe the Democrats are always wrong and because we are both Republicans, you believe I'll agree with you on anything you say whether illogical or not, but early voting is not actually cheating in any way...

But I couldn't say anything to him because he held our lives in his hands. And in his Clown Pocket car. So I just made a weird face and continued to stare into the blackness that was my window in silence...

I will miss the Clown Pocket car a little though. I fondly remember the time we pulled over for a second just to check our maps and the elderly gentleman inside the house we were in front of saw those giant Romney posters and promptly flipped us off....

I had heard, before this trip, stories from other people who have done this in the past. Stories about funny things that would happen, or ways in which our two major political parties would fight each other on the trail. Like the time, years ago, when supposedly Party 1 rented up every single rental van in an area just so Party 2 wouldn't have any rides to go door to door.(The unused vans then just sat in a parking lot....where Party 2 allegedly proceeded to slash the tires....)

Sounds mature, right?

But I have to say, I was all fired up for some fun competition so of course when we ran into some Obama campaigners on the sidewalk, I have to say I was very disappointed that they didn't want to engage in fake friendly combat.

Even after I initiated football tackling motions towards them.

Awk-ward.

But onto my stories about the actual door knockees we encountered.

For the most part, people were friendly. Like I said, we already knew which people were likely voting Republican and which were undecided but leaning that way. However, there's always a chance you get it wrong and end up yelling to an angry man from the other side of the street to "go ahead and come get me in your PAJAMAS, mister!"

That thankfully did not happen to me but it did happen to another guy on our trip. At the time of him telling me this story, he was sheepish for taunting the man about his pjs but the man did come out of his house - in pjs - to chase our campaigner for knocking on his door....hilarious.

I did nearly get chased as well, though. I'll explain in the next post.

Stories from the Campaign Trail

I hesistate to even bring up politics given the intensity with which my friends all fought during our recent Presidential election. Can I just say to everyone:

If your guy lost, move on.

If your guy won, move on.

No one ever said "you know, that last meme that made fun of my political party really changed my mind."

No one.

Ahem. And my guy lost but I still thought it'd be fun to share the funny parts of my brief stint campaigning for him in middle America. It started with a seven hour ride.

On a bus.

Actually, it started with me running from work, to the bus, and getting stuck in the metro doors, dropping one of my bags outside the train and tugging helplessly at the other one stuck in the door until strangers helped me pry the door open and toss my bag back to me. But I digress...

Which reminds me of one of my favorite metro stories that my friend Rod, the other Goldfish Poodle, witnessed. One day, strangers were all standing around inside a metro car when it stopped and one of them got off. But a random bag was still lying on the floor of the train. So all of a sudden, a startled passenger yells out to the person who just got off and says "You forgot your bag!!" then before anyone could register what was happening, that person flung said bag OUT of the train as the door closes. ...then, one of the other passengers looks down then yelps "what did you do with my bag!?" and had to jump off at the next stop and catch a train back to where their bag was. Ha! People's misfortune is funny....

Anyway. So I show up outside the Republican Party's headquarters, and there are masses of people and several giant tour busses loading up and we all go to different places and of course my bus has the longest journey. Overnight. So we are supposed to sleep on this bus where our knees are up in our chins and that doesn't happen so we arrive at our destination sometime around 3am and then have to wake up at 6:30. And knock on doors. And be friendly.

 
I'ma need quite a bit of coffee for this, friends.

So we head out to one of the campaign centers in this town and we get paired up with a local volunteer who will drive us around while we jump out and knock on specific houses that the party has already determined are either undecided or voting for our candidate. And we get a script and some materials to leave behind if no one answers, and we get maps and are unleashed on neighborhoods 7 hours away from where we live. And both parties do this. And we all do it for free. In fact we clammor to make sure we GET to do this for free, in the cold, over a weekend. Silly politicals...

Anyway, my friend Rebekah is with me and we join another DCer and all jump in the car of a local man who will be a driver for that day.

And he's chatty.

And he's uber Republican. Like enough to annoy me and I'm obviously also Republican (see: my years working for President Bush. like HERE). And he has plastered giant black  Romney/Ryan signs across both back windows of his car so that when Rebekah and I get in, we can no longer see out.

It was like that Frasier episode where his neighbor put a giant American flag over his windows and Frasier couldn't see outside and finally yells "I feel like I'm living in a giant clown's POCKET!"

That's how Rebekah and I felt trying to look out our windows. Like we were living in the pocket of a giant black shirt. It made for easy spotting from the outside though. After we'd been walking around random neighborhoods for a while we'd hear "looks like your ride's here!" as those giant signs and car attached would round the corner...

But of course, we couldn't help find addresses from the inside, yet the driver continually would ask anyway. "Hey, do you guys see 2214?..." Me and Rebekah look at each other. "Yeah - nope! We really can't see anything back here...." But he was too busy talking to ever realize.

The other thing it took him awhile to realize was that his car automatically locks its own doors once you start driving, so every time we'd try to get back in, the doors would be locked. Every. Time.

So we spent all day jumping out of the clown's pocket, knocking on doors (of people whose names Rebekah couldn't be bothered with so I'd end up saying "this is the house of Mr. Vaclovas" and Rebekah would repeat "Baklava -- got it" and on she marched to ring the doorbell....), and walking back to the car, trying to open the door, being denied, then finally getting back in.

But we haven't even gotten to half the stories yet. I'll  have more in the next post but I'll leave you with a pic of my favorite sign from the campaign headquarters -

I should probably note that Rebekah and I never were given yard signs...

Presentation-Success!...eventually.

You'll be happy to know, nothing disastrous happened during my class presentation. But there were some close calls:

Right as I was leaving work to head to class, I look down and realize -

I'm wearing two different shoes.

(I keep several pairs of shoes under my desk -- it's like a DSW down there.)

Already off to an excellent start.

I narrowly avoid that disaster, get to class, and am told one of our team members has kindly made color copies of our presentation and that we'll all be splitting the cost of those copies. The other team member looks at me and says "the copies were ninety dollars."

I'm sorry, what?

Ninety? What did we print the presentation on, Kobe beef?

I try to shake that off and regroup in time to settle in to the first part of class which would entail listening to another group present before my group's turn. As if that wasn't enough to set me on edge, it turns out one classmate was sick in Florida and was attending class virtually through another classmate's iPad.

If you don't believe we are living in the future, just try sitting next to an iPad face that talks and responds and is propped up on your own purse all during class. I kept having to check and make sure my elbow or waterbottle wasn't blocking class from the face. Very unsettling.

Then, right as our group was up to present, the fourth member of our team - a girl who has proven a bit challenging every step of the way- shows up looking harried and mutters something about not having already printed off her notes. We spent the next 10 minutes trying to get those notes printed somehow, while our professor and our fake potential clients waited.

Sigh.

Finally, we start the presentation. And I, as expected, have trouble remembering to exhale but I do manage to get through my part and hand off to the next person. We continue through until I realize we are on track to go way over time. So I, in my typical impatient fashion, simply wait for a second where the professor and client seem distracted and I walk up to the podium and quietly state that "we need to wrap it up" to my teammate, while giving the universal "wrap it up" motion with my finger.

So subtle.

It wasn't until the end of class that I remember the professor has been video taping all the presentations so we can see how badly we all are at public speaking. And that camera totally saw my subtle "get a move on, already" move. So professional - ugh.

At least we got through it and I think we'll pass. Can't wait to watch the video footage next week....

The Gift of Public Speaking

That’s what you all can get me for Christmas this year seeing as I DON’T POSSESS IT.

Tonight, my group project team and I present our final presentation that will basically determine our grade for this semester. How can I describe to you how bad I am at public speaking?

- I get anxious in staff meetings with my colleagues who I am friends with and see every day.

- I get anxious just having to announce my name and what I do in a room for of people (I actually left a meeting - acted like I needed to take a call – last week and came back in only after I was sure the Everyone Introduce Yourself To The Group portion of the event was over. *bowing head in shame*)

- I get anxious talking on conference calls when no one can even see me.

There’s just something about having the stage that I can’t handle.

I take that back, I actually love attention. I love regaling groups of people at parties with my strange stories.  I loved dancing on stage when I took ballet as a child, loved playing the piano at recitals, and loved singing on stage when I was a part of a cover band for 4 years here in DC (YES. I may not have mentioned much about that before but I did, in fact, sing in a band. There are photos and videos somewhere. I’ll try to find some to share. Maybe.)

But when I have to speak on command – when everyone stops talking and stares at me, forced to listen to whatever I’ll say no matter how uninteresting or discombobulated it might be –

I can’t take that pressure.

I’ve mentioned the first time I realized I could break into hives HERE. Since that happened, I can distinctly feel myself getting blotchy whenever I speak in front of a group.

I also forget to exhale.

I also make weird jokes.

I also get too informal and am tempted to use “y’all” or end every thought with a “ya know what I mean...”

I once gave a presentation in front of my church and kept talking and talking, continually inhaling without letting any breath out, until finally I reached a point where I was either going to squeak out one last word right before blacking out, or force myself to push air out of my lungs.

I chose the latter.

And did it into the mic.

And everyone laughed.

........

I’ve given presentations at large company meetings and started discussion about the work I did during a serious national disaster by saying:

“this mic is too short for me. I’m gunna need to squat up here and work on my quads during this.”

Yes.

So you can see why I’m living in dread today. Hopefully I won’t have any new embarrassing stories after presenting tonight.

But I promise to share if I do. Wish me luck.

Tunnel ----> Light

I'm essentially a week away from being done with this semester/year of grad school - hooray!!

But that means that this week, I'm still crazy and don't have time to post much. I will, however, give a run down of yesterday for your enjoyment.

Yesterday:
Halfway through the work day, a coworker hands me a letter, asks if I think it looks "sparkly," then informs me it did NOT go through the usual inspection it should have and that he found it rather suspicious.

After he hands it to me.

Sooo - 2:00pm: receive possible anthrax exposure.

4:35 pm: Head to class - late, as usual.

4:40pm: First set of escalators to the metro train: broken

4:50pm: have to switch trains and find that the second set of escalators I have to take are: also broken

5:00pm: get off metro, realize I didn't bring anything to eat, so I stop at a street vendor and buy animal crackers and Ritz with peanut butter. For dinner.

5:20pm: I'm sitting in class and bite into the animal crackers, realizing: they are terrible. Possibly poisonous. Should go nicely inside my body with the possible anthrax from earlier. I have to throw them away, thus I'm down to "dinner" being -- Ritz with peanut butter.

7:45pm: finally able to leave class and need to somehow sprint in the cold half a mile away to meet up with friends.

7:46pm: my classmate graciously offers a ride with her boyfriend who is picking her up and will be driving close to where my friends are.

7:47pm: classmate informs me the ride is a van with no seats.

7:48pm: I'm riding through D.C. perched in my work clothes on top of a stereo speaker in the back of a van.

7:50pm: I meet up with my friends and instantly report that I just hitched a ride there,  on top of a stereo speaker in the back of a van. I'm very pleased with myself. My friends are vaguely confused but not surprised.

10:00pm: Friends and I head home and on the walk back to the metro, have a rousing conversation about how pedestrians in D.C. need to watch for cars even if said pedestrians have the right of way.

10:10pm: My friend Laura finishes ranting about how if a car hits her while she has the right of way, it serves them right and they can pay for her funeral. She then starts to cross the street, stops last minute and says "ugh, I don't have enough time on the walk sign to make it afterall."

10:11pm: BAM!

Two cars ram each other full speed in the intersection we are looking at.

I know, right??

Now, by this point, I'm getting fairly used to being first on the scene of accidents as I mentioned here. So I jog over to the car full of people frantically trying to get out because the car is smoking (and, as shown here, I tend to run toward danger, rather than away...cuz I'm smart like that....) and I'm simultaneously pulling out my phone to call 911 while mechanically cooing at the two girls now sitting down on the asphalt, freaking out. "mm hmm, you're ok honey....um...you're going to be fine, yada yada...." (Kidding, it was more heartfelt than that but this whole scene is starting to feel very routine...)

Thankfully, no one was really hurt, just shaken up. And since me and my friends didn't really see how the accident happened, we leave and continue on, now a bit jumpy ourselves.

So Laura heads one way, and my other friend Sean and I head to the metro. And the train stops and we start to get on -- and only half the door will open to let us in.

What is up with tonight?

I finally get to my stop where I get in my car to drive the rest of the way home, and as I'm heading over a bridge, I see a car swerve around something in their lane and I realize it's a big orange construction barrel. No sign of construction. Just one big random barrel on its side. Why not.

I reach into my purse to report it - and realize my phone is still in my coat pocket from the last incident...

Sheesh....

I finally get home and get ready for bed, trying to think positively about having a short work week and the semester being nearly over.

I just hope the light I see at the end of the tunnel isn't just another car turning into oncoming traffic.....

Running While Glowing

Sorry I've been neglecting you, Internet. Between hurricanes, elections, grad school and work, I'm struggling a bit. I do have some fun stories coming up from my time on the campaign trail but first, I'll tell you about my latest race- DC's first Glow In The Dark 5K Dance Party, yet another event I couldn't resist from LivingSocial. Everyone wears all black and as many glow sticks as they want, and we run for 3 miles then all join a giant dance party inside the DC Armory.





Now, the video above kind of explains the event except we didn't actually run through the streets of D.C.

We ran around a parking lot.

Stay with me, it was still fun. But first let me start at the beginning of the day.

Since the race was at night (hence the Glowing In The Dark part), I brought my race clothes into work with me and was planning on catching a ride from there with a friend to the start line. And as I’m parking in my garage at work, I pull into a spot and inch up –

And hit the car in front of me.

Sigh.

I’ve had this car, oh, 4 years. I’m pretty familiar with how long the front end is. I don’t hit things typically but for whatever reason, this morning I misjudge and get to see the car in front of me rock from the impact. Thankfully, it didn’t cause any damage but of course I'm surprised it happens. And just wait, because it becomes funny later on.

For now, let's fast forward to mid-day, when another girl that is running the race tells me that apparently we are getting “misted” with glowing paint during the race.

This is the first I’ve heard of this.

So now I’m thinking – the shirt I brought to wear is from my first marathon (well, the first attempt anyway, the Country Music race that was explained here) and I really don’t want to get it stained with whatever they are “misting” us with. So now what?

Well, there are some random clothing stores in the basement of the building I work in. So I pass one that has a black shirt in the window with the words “First Lady Obama” bedazzled on the front.

That is so going to be my race shirt if I don’t find something at the next store.

Sadly (?) I did find a slightly more appropriate sweatshirt on sale at the next store, but even it still had the name of a Pennsylvania hockey team emblazoned across the front in shiny gold letters. But let's face it, I’m about to be covered in some kind of radioactive mist, I suppose I shouldn't be worried about how “serious-racer-like” I look at this point. I buy the sweatshirt.

I change clothes just in time to jump into my friend’s car and head to the start line outside of RFK Stadium. And as we pull into a parking space, my friend pulls his emergency break and looks down at his phone. And I suddenly realize we are still moving forward and I can’t even get the words out before – BAM! I see the car in front of me rock from impact for the second time today! Seriously, how weird is that!? Twice in one day?? I immediately just apologize to my friend because he knows me well enough by now to know I’m bad luck and totally made that happen somehow. He agreed. Sigh.

Anyway, back to the race. We meet up with some others and head to the start line and realize – we sure are just running laps inside the RFK parking lot. But, in retrospect, I suppose it’s probably not the best idea to unleash 8,000 people wearing black clothing onto the streets of D.C. on a Friday night. Good call, LivingSocial.

Me at the start line. Yeah, not so easily seen.

But it ended up being really fun because they pumped music throughout the course, created different stages where we could take dance breaks, had lit up archways, and of course -the misting tents.

Which ended up all being broken when we ran through them.

Every. One.

I bought that stupid sweatshirt for nothing… Kinda wish I’d chosen the First Lady shirt now. At least I'd have something new to wear to cocktail parties…

So after running and dancing (and skipping, ballet leaping, doing the Gangnam Style dance – pretty much whatever we felt the urge to do...I definitely swung a glowstick over my head like a lasso through a good portion of the race…gotta say that was a first…) we started to lose steam and decided to start cheating and cutting through the course wherever possible. (Stop judging – it’s not like they time this thing.) But the funny part is, we were so busy dancing and being silly that we started just making random turns until we realized we didn’t even know if we were going in the right direction anymore and in fact may have made our race longer by rejoining waves behind us accidentally, thinking we were joining waves in front of us.

I forgot to mention this thing had multiple waves. I suppose it was to prevent us from stampeding over each other in the dark but it was a little annoying at first because we had to stand for quite awhile before our wave was finally set free. But you know what made it worth it? The fact that our Wave name was: “The Hustlers.” Best. Wave Name. EVER.

But now we’ve spun around so many times we don’t know how close we are to the finish line and at one point, we actually pass a race volunteer and we hear “why are they running that way??”

Not a good sign.

Thankfully, we finally did find the finish line and was able to join the Dance Party portion happening inside the Armory.

And now that I think about it, the last time I was inside that place for an actual event – was for an Inaugural Ball for President and First Lady Obama. I SO WAS MEANT TO BUY THAT FIRST LADY SHIRT.

But back to the party. We get inside and it’s like an adult playground. First, everyone looks like varying degrees of ridiculous. Three girls who ran with us were in tutus, a guy near us was wearing a Banana Costume, and another guy ran by wearing what looked like a football helmet made of glow sticks. And everyone is just dancing with abandon and tossing around glowing balloons. There was even a Twister mat where various glowing bodies were playing and I heard there was limbo somewhere as well but I was too busy trying not to lose my friends in the dark to go find it. We left not too long after the Balloon Drop, very satisfied with our random race.

The only other race I have left this year is an 8k where everyone wears jingle bells. I’ll keep you posted on whether or not I lose my hearing and/or sanity. Until then, enjoy the pics of this one:



Rockin' the new "fly" sweatshirt - pun intended. (I have no ties to the Philly Flyers but the UT Vols shirt I found next to it was too small...and lacked the tacky gold letters, so, obviously also inferior.)