I just wanted you start off this Sunday morning with this thought: If you voted for a candidate on the show “American Idol” but not for one for president in the primaries nor do you plan to in the upcoming November elections, you're what's wrong with this country. I don't want to write angrily about the state of affairs we're in. I don't want to have to mention the idiocy rampant in Washington, D.C. or the horrific atrocities being committed by our current commander in chief. I want to calmly get the point across that listening to 4 women in a cafe complaining about the state of government, then about how they voted 7 times for either David or David – sickened me. Terribly.

I'm the guy who has a hard time keeping his mouth closed. I had to ask,

I couldn't help myself. After listening to these women talk about how bad things were in our school district and then how bad D.C. was, I moved back to my focus on sudoku. I tried. I tried really hard not to listen to them when they started talking about the TV show that millions seem to be enamored with. I absolutely detest that kind of crap. When I heard the woman say she had voted 7 times for one contestant, then another talk about how she could only vote once because the lines were busy, I just couldn't take it anymore.

I looked up upon this group of happy-go-lucky 'idolers' and interjected just loudly enough for the closest woman to hear. “Who did you vote for in the primaries?”

“Primaries?” She asked. “In the first weeks? I still voted for David”

“No,” I cut her off before she could start another sentence. “The presidential primaries.”

“Oh, I don't vote in that. I might vote for president, but it's not like it matters”

Another of her group spoke up about her wondrous display of citizenship the day before. “I voted last night for the Board of Ed member. Local stuff is what I care about”

Here we go. A ray of light. I got hopeful, either because she had voted the night before or I forgot some medication I should be on. I was actually interested, because my district had just voted on a busing budget increase that would raise the budget about $100,000, which is a pretty big increase when you live in a town with roughly 1500 tax payers. “How did you vote on the bus? I voted against it. I honestly don't see where we need the kids picked up who are 1500 feet from school. “

She replied “That's for the school board to decide. That's why I voted last night. For the school board.”

I guess she didn't notice, what with the complicated voting booth – pull lever, close curtain, few little levers marked with voting options, open curtain, go home – that right next to the one member of the school board up for election, there was one other thing to vote on. Maybe a lot of people didn't notice, because it's only been a topic of discussion for weeks now, one so big that it is suspected to have had something to do with the superintendent being reassigned to home duty her last 6 weeks before retirement. So I guess with all the papers going around about it, all the small town talk and the big bold letters on the voting machine, she must just have missed it.

The women then began to talk politics. This, I realized was bad when they all agreed again that they're votes for president don't count and that voting in November was a waste of time. It made me hang my head in shame. Are they more American than me?

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