Get out the vote… until it hurts!

For your amusement, by Stan Matuska

Now is the time to get out the vote, and a LOT of people have been helping to do just that. I for one, decided I was not doing enough by just talking the talk, so I decided to walk the walk.

I don’t want to give you the impression that I did a lot of work because I really didn’t; but I did help, as this story will attest to. I told John Good in passing that I would help him hang door hangers if he needed help. Lucky me. He asked me to help him this past Saturday morning! I started out with a migraine headache and no breakfast. I met John at his house around 10:45AM. He offered me some re-heated pizza, but I declined. After all, we surely weren’t going to be gone that long. Oh, and we had to take along his youngest daughter because John’s wife was out of town with his older daughter. Now I am seeing this getting interesting.

I asked John to drive since he knew the area better than myself and he had a specific list of homes we needed to go to. Since he was driving and since I knew that he had been doing this by himself for some time, I decided I would be the major party to actually run from the car to the doors and place the door hangers.
This was fine… for a while. About 12:30 I asked if we were about done. He said we were about 30% done, but that we didn’t have to do every precinct today. His daughter, Sabrina, is very cute, but after a while in the car, with a migraine, she was starting to wear on me. No problem. We don’t have much more to do, I am just sure of it. John? How about a bathroom break? Ok – we went to my office, which was nearby. Of course, John and his daughter didn’t have to go! While I did my business, John got out all his paperwork, maps etc on the trunk of the car plotting and planning our next areas to cover. “Now, it will go faster”, he says. “Faster”, I am thinking, how about “are we are done yet” I thought? Ok – I can do this.
By 1:30 I am pretty hungry, and my legs are getting sore (I don’t exercise like I should). The migraine is still there. The car starts making funny noises. Ok, this might be time to quit. No, the car still runs fine. Then my cell phone rings. It’s the office calling. I need to work on a client problem as soon as possible. I tell John this, but I added, “no hurry” so as to not sound like I didn’t want to be there!
Apparently, he bought it, just my luck. Like a kid on a long drive with the constant ‘are we there yet”, I was hinting at “how much more do we have to do”? We were making good progress. Probably 130 homes by now. “How about one more precinct” John asks. “Sure, why not” I say as if I really was up to it.

Ok, now my headache is still there, stomach rumbling, Sabrina rambling, legs sore and it’s after 2:00PM. I call my wife, as if to say, “we are about done” so John knows I am nearing the end. I think John was on a mission, and nothing was going to get in his way!

Now we are truly nearing the end (he said he would do the other precincts himself the following day). I am running back and forth and back and forth and owwwwwww!!! I hurt my leg!!! Something “gave” in my knee. I did a few more houses, and finally told John that I just couldn’t walk any more. No problem, he would finish the job. Such a nice guy.

I think we got back to his house around 2:30. So the entire journey was only about 3 hours, and we went to over 150 addresses. Not bad. We parted ways, and I drove home. I don’t want to say I was miserable, because I know John really appreciated my efforts, but I was, well… miserable. First I ate, followed by a serious dose of Tylenol; then called a friend to say that I couldn’t make our meeting today. I limped around the house from the pain in my leg. I wound up sleeping until 6:00PM. The day is now shot. I did do a good thing though.

Now it’s 5:00AM Sunday (yesterday) morning, and I wake up with serious pain in my knee. I can’t even move it. My wife gets up and puts ice on it, which allows me to fall back asleep. I wake up around 9:00AM and spend many minutes trying to get my legs out of bed. It was obvious I had injured my leg helping with the door hangers.

My wife drove me to the ER around 11:00AM. After 3:00PM, I am now nauseous from the medicine from the ER. The X-rays did not show any serious damage, but there is a sprain that will require a trip to the orthopedic surgeon. I pay the $100 copay, go home and sleep until 6:00PM. Another day shot. My wife and I were going to go to the Soaring Eagle casino in Michigan this week-end to celebrate my birthday next Monday, but we decided to cancel the trip due to my injury.

So, for only 3 hours of work, I gave until it hurts; and also gave much more than I had intended. Hey, it was for a good cause =)