Slowly Evolving...
Well, I have a title and a plot for my nanowrimo novel! I am up to 1,522 words now. I need to get to 50,000! I hoping that I can write a lot this weekend since I have no plans whatsoever. Had it snowed heavily in Killington this week, then I would have been really tempted to chuck the whole novel writing thing and go to my ski house. But that is not the case, so it must be fate. This is my destiny.
I am posting my first 1,522 words for you to read! Please disregard any gramatical errors, as I have not edited this and I failed that class. Besides, luckily for me, none of that counts for this contest. It is really just a race to 50,000 words.
Title: Hanging Chad !
Saturday, September 7th, 2005
We were up earlier than the crack of ass. The street lights were still shinning. It had just started to get that chill in the morning. The chill you feel when you know the summer has gone. Everyone had collected their signs. We left in groups of two and we each had a roadmap which carefully marked where each sign would go. The placement was very important. I left with Harold. We took his car. He drove one of those hybrid cars, a true Democrat. I on the other hand had a pickup truck, which would have proved much more useful today, but it was having some troubles of its own. Harold and I tried to fit some signs in the back seat of his car. It didn’t have much of a trunk. Harold was cursing like a sailor. I had never heard him curse like that. Those signs were not very forgiving and left multiple scratch wounds to his precious Prius. Jim saw that we were having some trouble so he took some of our signs that we weren’t able to squash in the car. I tore off the last 5 locations off of my list and handed them to Jim. “Thanks!” I said. Jim just gave me a smirk and his eyes rolled up to look at me.
Harold gave me a high-five. First stop was residential. This could be dangerous. People get nuts. This is why we head out before daylight and this is why we get the residential locales over first. We stopped at the corner of Cropwell and Marlowe Rd. As Harold was trying to maneuver a sign out of the back seat very carefully, I was keeping an eye out for blue hairs. Blue hairs are the worst. Old people pretty much don’t have too much to be happy about. They look to pick a fight whenever they get the chance. Except on Election Day, we love them on Election Day. In fact, I will be driving the bus that will take them to the polls! I tried to signal to Harold, but it was too late. There she was a cute little old blue hair that was going to probably get ugly as soon as she noticed that we were going to plant a sign on her corner. We waited like two children with their hands caught in the cookie jar. But she didn’t look like she was going to harass us. She had a smile on her face. This was new. She has basically put a wrench in my blue hair theory. She came over and introduced herself. “Hello! she said. My name is Margaret. I live here.” “Hello, we both replied. Nice to meet you, I am Chad and this is my partner Harold.” He hated when I called him that. He thinks that people will assume that we are gay if I say that. I think he’s insane. “You boys are up pretty early, have you had breakfast? Would you like to come in and have a drink of water and something to eat?” Now she was really starting to piss me off. I mean, we are experts on this stuff. We generally don’t get this stuff wrong.
Harold and I work together. We both do Opinion Research for a company in Mount Laurel, NJ.
Harold is really good. He’s 10 years older to me, so he has that much more experience than I do. Not to say that I’m not seasoned, myself. This was my first job out of school. I’m not exactly sure how I ended up doing what I’m doing, but I really do love it, especially helping to run the campaigns. What a rush. They want us because they know we can influence people. That’s our job.
We banged out 7 more stops and then we decided it was time to take a break. This is actually not the fun part of campaigning but it’s a necessary evil. And every time I pass one of my signs I get a good feeling. Harold and I headed to the local diner. Diners were strategically placed in Cherry Hill so that no matter where you were in the town you could be at a diner in 7 minutes. When we walked into the diner the hostess acknowledged us right away. She had such a pretty smile. Cherry Hill wasn’t that small a town where everyone knew each other, but if you frequented a place long enough, you could get a smile and a nod. We got a window seat. This made Harold very happy. He could keep watch on his new car. I swear you would think he was driving a Porsche or something? “No one is going to steal your car Harold!” “I know” he said. “I just like to look at her.” I rolled my eyes in disgust. This guy really needs a girlfriend! Well, so do I.
Harold and I were discussing the Democratic debate viewing we were going to tonight. I didn’t tell him that prior to that I was also attending a Republican fund raiser. I got the invitation a couple of weeks ago.
September 8, 2005
Thank goodness it’s Saturday and I have nothing to do but recover from last night. Yesterday was fairly hectic with planting signs in the AM to putting in a full day at work. Which involved breaking in 4 new trainees, one which was really good looking, and well the rest were a bunch of slobs like me. It’s my job to train rookies. I show em the ropes so to speak. I make sure that they are not deviating away from their scripts. Consistency is very important in this business. We need to be accurate. People can through you off. They start asking questions, or making comments. Sometimes they curse at you and slam the phone down in your ear. I’m not sure what percentage of hearing I have left at this point. Anyway, I have to prepare our rookies for these types of situations, we role play. This is fun for me. I get to be the angry unsuspecting cocksucker on the other end of the phone. “How did you get my number? It’s unlisted! You know, I am on the DO NOT CALL LIST!!” If I had a dime for every time I heard that. Well, I might run for something myself. “Get used to that line” I told them. “You’re gonna hear that a lot! Now, how would you respond to that?” The cute one gave me a look like you better not ask me! So, I did. “Jacklyn, what would you say to that?” “I would say, Political surveys are exempt from that list.” I was shocked, cute and smart. I think she could tell that I liked her. I was not skilled in the art of hiding that fact. I only had one strategy with women and it hasn’t changed since the 6th grade. That is to pick on them and sometimes look at them with my eyes glazed over, like I’m hypnotized along with a goofy smile. Oddly enough, most women see through this almost immediately and the latter was usually met with disgust.
At 5:30pm I went to a “Young Republican’s” happy hour mixer for the R’s Assembly candidates in the 7th district, which is weird because a) I live in the 6th district, and b) the YRs are supposed to be between 25 and 35 years old and I turned 37 this year. So, I was feeling a little insecure about that, but figured, hey they invited me? I wondered if there was a group for those of us in our late 30s. I suppose most people in their late 30s are busy with their families and careers, but that is changing. There are more and more of us who are not married with children in our late 30s. But what are we? We’re not young. We’re not old. Are we middle aged? Shouldn’t I be having some crisis if that were the case? Anyway, the mixer was fun. I got to meet a lot of new people, and once they hear that I do opinion research everyone wants to talk to me. There was even a reporter from a newspaper there. She interviewed me. She was gorgeous! I’m not even sure what the hell I was saying to her? I hope I didn’t let out any secrets. That’s another thing about being involved with a campaign. You find out stuff and it’s so hard not to let it out. What good is knowing a juicy secret if you can’t share it with someone. I need to meet this reporter again. I might need to consult some people on a new strategy. Although, she seemed very interested in what I was telling her. I can go on and on about politics. That is a subject that I am very passionate about. I could see that she was too. I had never seen her at a Dem party.
The Dems are a little more low-key. They typically do the “House Party”, which is comfortable and cozy.
I am posting my first 1,522 words for you to read! Please disregard any gramatical errors, as I have not edited this and I failed that class. Besides, luckily for me, none of that counts for this contest. It is really just a race to 50,000 words.
Title: Hanging Chad !
Saturday, September 7th, 2005
We were up earlier than the crack of ass. The street lights were still shinning. It had just started to get that chill in the morning. The chill you feel when you know the summer has gone. Everyone had collected their signs. We left in groups of two and we each had a roadmap which carefully marked where each sign would go. The placement was very important. I left with Harold. We took his car. He drove one of those hybrid cars, a true Democrat. I on the other hand had a pickup truck, which would have proved much more useful today, but it was having some troubles of its own. Harold and I tried to fit some signs in the back seat of his car. It didn’t have much of a trunk. Harold was cursing like a sailor. I had never heard him curse like that. Those signs were not very forgiving and left multiple scratch wounds to his precious Prius. Jim saw that we were having some trouble so he took some of our signs that we weren’t able to squash in the car. I tore off the last 5 locations off of my list and handed them to Jim. “Thanks!” I said. Jim just gave me a smirk and his eyes rolled up to look at me.
Harold gave me a high-five. First stop was residential. This could be dangerous. People get nuts. This is why we head out before daylight and this is why we get the residential locales over first. We stopped at the corner of Cropwell and Marlowe Rd. As Harold was trying to maneuver a sign out of the back seat very carefully, I was keeping an eye out for blue hairs. Blue hairs are the worst. Old people pretty much don’t have too much to be happy about. They look to pick a fight whenever they get the chance. Except on Election Day, we love them on Election Day. In fact, I will be driving the bus that will take them to the polls! I tried to signal to Harold, but it was too late. There she was a cute little old blue hair that was going to probably get ugly as soon as she noticed that we were going to plant a sign on her corner. We waited like two children with their hands caught in the cookie jar. But she didn’t look like she was going to harass us. She had a smile on her face. This was new. She has basically put a wrench in my blue hair theory. She came over and introduced herself. “Hello! she said. My name is Margaret. I live here.” “Hello, we both replied. Nice to meet you, I am Chad and this is my partner Harold.” He hated when I called him that. He thinks that people will assume that we are gay if I say that. I think he’s insane. “You boys are up pretty early, have you had breakfast? Would you like to come in and have a drink of water and something to eat?” Now she was really starting to piss me off. I mean, we are experts on this stuff. We generally don’t get this stuff wrong.
Harold and I work together. We both do Opinion Research for a company in Mount Laurel, NJ.
Harold is really good. He’s 10 years older to me, so he has that much more experience than I do. Not to say that I’m not seasoned, myself. This was my first job out of school. I’m not exactly sure how I ended up doing what I’m doing, but I really do love it, especially helping to run the campaigns. What a rush. They want us because they know we can influence people. That’s our job.
We banged out 7 more stops and then we decided it was time to take a break. This is actually not the fun part of campaigning but it’s a necessary evil. And every time I pass one of my signs I get a good feeling. Harold and I headed to the local diner. Diners were strategically placed in Cherry Hill so that no matter where you were in the town you could be at a diner in 7 minutes. When we walked into the diner the hostess acknowledged us right away. She had such a pretty smile. Cherry Hill wasn’t that small a town where everyone knew each other, but if you frequented a place long enough, you could get a smile and a nod. We got a window seat. This made Harold very happy. He could keep watch on his new car. I swear you would think he was driving a Porsche or something? “No one is going to steal your car Harold!” “I know” he said. “I just like to look at her.” I rolled my eyes in disgust. This guy really needs a girlfriend! Well, so do I.
Harold and I were discussing the Democratic debate viewing we were going to tonight. I didn’t tell him that prior to that I was also attending a Republican fund raiser. I got the invitation a couple of weeks ago.
September 8, 2005
Thank goodness it’s Saturday and I have nothing to do but recover from last night. Yesterday was fairly hectic with planting signs in the AM to putting in a full day at work. Which involved breaking in 4 new trainees, one which was really good looking, and well the rest were a bunch of slobs like me. It’s my job to train rookies. I show em the ropes so to speak. I make sure that they are not deviating away from their scripts. Consistency is very important in this business. We need to be accurate. People can through you off. They start asking questions, or making comments. Sometimes they curse at you and slam the phone down in your ear. I’m not sure what percentage of hearing I have left at this point. Anyway, I have to prepare our rookies for these types of situations, we role play. This is fun for me. I get to be the angry unsuspecting cocksucker on the other end of the phone. “How did you get my number? It’s unlisted! You know, I am on the DO NOT CALL LIST!!” If I had a dime for every time I heard that. Well, I might run for something myself. “Get used to that line” I told them. “You’re gonna hear that a lot! Now, how would you respond to that?” The cute one gave me a look like you better not ask me! So, I did. “Jacklyn, what would you say to that?” “I would say, Political surveys are exempt from that list.” I was shocked, cute and smart. I think she could tell that I liked her. I was not skilled in the art of hiding that fact. I only had one strategy with women and it hasn’t changed since the 6th grade. That is to pick on them and sometimes look at them with my eyes glazed over, like I’m hypnotized along with a goofy smile. Oddly enough, most women see through this almost immediately and the latter was usually met with disgust.
At 5:30pm I went to a “Young Republican’s” happy hour mixer for the R’s Assembly candidates in the 7th district, which is weird because a) I live in the 6th district, and b) the YRs are supposed to be between 25 and 35 years old and I turned 37 this year. So, I was feeling a little insecure about that, but figured, hey they invited me? I wondered if there was a group for those of us in our late 30s. I suppose most people in their late 30s are busy with their families and careers, but that is changing. There are more and more of us who are not married with children in our late 30s. But what are we? We’re not young. We’re not old. Are we middle aged? Shouldn’t I be having some crisis if that were the case? Anyway, the mixer was fun. I got to meet a lot of new people, and once they hear that I do opinion research everyone wants to talk to me. There was even a reporter from a newspaper there. She interviewed me. She was gorgeous! I’m not even sure what the hell I was saying to her? I hope I didn’t let out any secrets. That’s another thing about being involved with a campaign. You find out stuff and it’s so hard not to let it out. What good is knowing a juicy secret if you can’t share it with someone. I need to meet this reporter again. I might need to consult some people on a new strategy. Although, she seemed very interested in what I was telling her. I can go on and on about politics. That is a subject that I am very passionate about. I could see that she was too. I had never seen her at a Dem party.
The Dems are a little more low-key. They typically do the “House Party”, which is comfortable and cozy.
posted by blair at 6:17 PM
2 comments
