absentee epic

I am a fake American. I watch the Daily Show over the internet, I buy organic yogurt, and I live in perhaps the most un-American part of fake America: Europe. Now, I may not wear a flag pin on my non-existent T-Shirt lapel, but I am a patriotic American, and if Sarah Palin thinks otherwise, she should try to vote from here. 30 euros, sweat, blood, and tears later, I voted yesterday, guarenteed to arrive the 4th of November, or your money back. It remains true that the Northeast votes don't matter anyway, unless perhaps if you live in New Hampshire or Maine. New Jersey voters can vote until they're blue in the face and they'll still be...well, blue. But this is not the tale of the ridiculously complex and inefficient Electoral College. This epic details my attempts to vote, from across the pond. The story begins in September, before Obama was a terrorist and before Palin was a diva. Doing what I thought was the right thing, I went to the embassy, where they gave me the absentee ballot application and the address of the Sussex County clerk. I didn't even need to wait. They offered to mail it for me, for free. What a deal! However, I don't have time to be running around Madrid, so I mailed it myself. I even had the clerk glue it shut, since my envelope was a faulty. Weeks past, my brother voted for Scholz/Scholz on the town council, and I still hadn't received my ballot. As a worrier, thoughts of lost mail and stolen ballots began to enter my mind. Then, I realized the embassy had given me the wrong address. Wasting no time, since now it was around October 15, one month after filling out my original absentee ballot application, I filled out two more: one to my mother, and one to the clerk, just in case it didn't get there, again. Crisis averted, or so I thought. In the time between when I sent my ballot, and when my mother informed me of the successful reception by the county clerk's office, I received my first ballot application, sent by the United States Post Office. Sigh. Then, I waited. After a week, without any sign of a ballot or a traveling polling station, I called the clerk. It was Fed-Exed, they told me. You should get it any day now. Four days later, in a frenzy for no apparent reason, I sent a frantic email to the clerk, detailing my saga and begging for some kind of ballot. They gave me a tracking number and told me that I had written the wrong address. Seeing as I have lived here for about three months and have received numerous letters, packages, and the like, I'll let you decide who wrote the wrong address. I called FedEx, and after having decided to pick up the package, I waited for the call with the address where it was. Finally, I called, AGAIN. Speaking this time with Leo, a friendly FedEx clerk, he gave me the address to a location OUTSIDE Madrid, on the side of a highway. Barely containing my frustration, I asked if I could have it delivered. Please hold, he said. Sadly, while holding, my phone ran out of money, leaving me without anyway to communicate my horribly complicated dilemma. So, I did what you do in these situations: I called my mom in tears, saying, "They wrote my direction wrong!" (In Spanish, address is dirreción, hence my confustion). After talking me down, I found an emergency absentee write-in ballot, to be used in case of chaotic mail. The next day, I ran to the post office, and asked how much it would cost to mail my letter express to the US (I had made a mental note to stay under 20 euros). It's 30 euros, she told me. After a moment of hesitation, I gave myself a peptalk. Abigail Scholz, you have come this far, now goddamnit, you're going to vote. And just like that, I voted.