A break in the angst
The phone rang a bit ago. The young man on the other end said it was a survey, would I mind spending a few minutes.
I figured, what the heck, I need a break from the daylong angst. So, sure.
He started off with some generic voting questions (easy, difficult; always, rarely). Then it went to the governor's race for about three questions, then would I vote for the Republican or the Democrat. Same drill for the Senate race.
Then he got to the meat of the survey, a series of questions about the local race for the state legislature. About three questions in I could see that the questions were going to be numerous and a bit more in depth; so, in an effort to save him some time (he seemed like a nice enough kid) I explained that I was working on the campaign of the Democratic candidate, that I was doing so because I had been very impressed with the caliber of his work and wanted to see much more of the same. He paused, then chuckled a little as he ticked off responses on his call sheet.
He then asked if he could ask a couple of questions of gun legislation, which my candidate had supported. By the way, I live in Colorado where this has been quite the issue. His first question was about background checks. I told him that years ago I'd been shot at by a guy who had a long record of violence and assaults, someone who should have never been allowed to purchase a gun; I explained that I'm alive simply because he was too drunk to maintain his aim from twelve feet away, that the wall to my left had a sizable hole in it instead of me. The caller paused, then said he could go ahead and assume the rest of my responses. He thanked me for my time and then hung up.
Nice break. Now back to the angst.
