E-Day

Isn't the atmosphere just awesome? Forget the fact that the weather is emphatically mediocre and that I am considerably tired following last night, most of which was spent at Fu Bar. What we are seeing occur today is the culmination of many months of tense anticipative hype. Most importantly the results will determine what course our country will take for the next three years. We are on a knife-edge here; one that is smothered with lubricant that warms on contact. This, my friends, is awesome.

I plugged my phone into the charger this morning, having just dragged myself out of bed, to find no less than nine text messages carrying a wide range of electoral prompts and slogans. "Forward. Together"; "Two ticks for National"; "Vote Labour, bee-atchs!". I remember feeling a brief sense of disappointment that free text is in place today, as otherwise I could have taken pleasure in the fact that the various Nats who had texted me had wasted their hard-earned capital. The privilege soon came into its own, however, as I threw various equally antagonistic comments back at them.

When I was at my local polling place, a gruelling twenty-metre-if-that walk up the road from my house, there was one thing that irked me -- just about everybody involved in doing the administrative activities was wearing a blue National ribbon. My mum, who came with me to vote, didn't notice that people were wearing them when she was there, but when I told her about it she expressed doubt as to its lawfulness, as it is basically an advertisement right there in voters' faces as they are about to walk to the booth. She suggested that I call someone from the Labour Party and ask them about it, but I checked the Election Day rules first and it turns out that parties, supporters or candidates are in fact allowed to wear ribbons.

Personally, regardless of whether I agree with a party's politics, I don't think allowing things like that is right, particularly considering that it is apparently not even legal for me to be displaying the bumper sticker on my car today. I still haven't bothered to take the sticker off though, and my car is parked where it always is -- in our driveway, twenty metres away from the polling place, its rear end resplendent with the bumper sticker, pointing towards the footpath for all to see. If you haven't voted yet, I am shocked, appalled and you shouldn't be online -- you should be out fulfilling your responsibility of participating in the democracy with which you are privileged. Do it now.