Who's Running?

Nothing annoys a potential constituent more than watching an eighteen-year-old traipse through their lawn and up to their door. Except, perhaps, when the teenager begins to knock loudly while ringing the doorbell. Even then, it may or may not be exacerbated by the sheer fact that it still smelled like five in the morning. Of course, it wasn’t five in the morning – it was eight.

The potential constituent shuffles to the door, slippers afoot and coffee in hand, to quiet the cacophonous music the college student is creating. They open the door to find none other than a tall, somewhat disheveled, freshman standing on their pouch with a handful of fliers. While the potential constituent stands in the doorway, slightly puzzled, the student seizes the opportunity and gets in the first words:

“Good morning. My name is Nicholas and I’m currently campaigning for Chris Logan. He is running against K.C. Crosbie for the seventh district council seat. He lives right down the road, on Packanack, so he understands what matters for those of us living over in the East Hills area, myself included. He was raised in Lexington and graduated from Bryan Station High School before moving on to the University of Kentucky where he received a degree in Business Administration.”

The constituent, who now realizes that they’ve been accosted by the door-to-door campaign of some agenda or another, gives the student a blank stare and offers a one word rebuttal: “Who?”

How is it that the potential constituent can have an “Obama/Biden” sign in their yard and yet know nothing about the city council elections? Perhaps they’re just a democrat and ignore all the nonpartisan politics. Perhaps they were just tired and not thinking properly. Or, and this is infinitely more likely, perhaps the potential constituent is like the majority of voters: ignorant to the local elections until five minutes before voting.

At any rate, the college student explained who Chris Logan was. He explained who K.C. Crosbie was. He explained what a city council was. He explained what the seventh district city council member was responsible for doing.

The potential constituent took a long sip from their coffee, which was getting cold, and gave the college student a face that spoke louder than words. It was the “why should I care about the city council” face. Or perhaps the “I wish you would stop explaining things to me and just go away” face. The college student assumed it was the former.

“K.C. Crosbie is a nice lady. When my neighborhood was experiencing a string of random thefts, she made the effort to come all the way out to one of the neighborhood association meetings with a police officer to explain to us things we could do to protect ourselves from being victims of theft. She even promised to get more police to patrol our streets. To date, that promise remains hollow.

“Chris Logan, on the other hand, has held a myriad of jobs, from being a financial planner to an insurance rep, from a small business owner to a pastor. He feels this makes him uniquely qualified to be our city councilman because he has had to listen to the problems of his congregation and has been able to help them through the ups and downs of life.”

The potential constituent said, “All right,” and shut the door. The teenager put on his best “thanks for listening” face, swallowed his pride as he had done with the last four houses on the block and walked to the next house down the street.

The next house looked much like the first: red brick, black roof, straight path from the sidewalk to the front door. A “Sarah!” sign was staked in the middle of the yard, showing that there was little thought that went into sign placement. The college student cut the corner from his walk and traipsed through yet another yard. He rang the doorbell and knocked on yet another door.

This time, a woman answered the door. She was dressed, unlike the man in the previous home. “What?” The question was rather forceful; it was almost as if she was demanding an explanation. Perhaps she was in a hurry. Perhaps she simply didn’t like being bothered by college students at eight thirty.

The college student repeated his speech, regurgitating the same lines and information.

The woman responded, “Why would I vote for Chris Logan? I’m voting for Sarah Palin!” The woman responded as if it were unheard of to have multiple offices up for election at the same time. The woman responded as if the door-to-door volunteer had grown a third head.

“Well, ma’am, Sarah Palin is running alongside John McCain for the office of Vice-President and President, respectively. Chris Logan is running for a position on our local city council, the seventh seat to be precise, where he would do things like voting to put a stoplight at the intersection of Squires and Alumni. Sarah Palin wouldn’t be responsible for these kinds of things,” the college student explained, treading carefully as not to offend the woman. After all, he was standing in her doorway.

“Now, you look here. Sarah Palin is a strong woman who can do anything that any man can do.”

It was at this point that the college student quit listening. He didn’t believe people like this woman actually existed. It was interesting to note that she couldn’t tell the difference between Vice President and City Councilman/woman.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time, ma’am,” he apologized.

He crossed the street and walked to the next house down the street. The next house looked inviting: red door, curved pathway, manicured lawn. It just seemed more open than some of the other homes. It might have had something to do with the toys that marred the lawn’s manicure.

The college student decided to do something different this time: to walk on the concrete path from the sidewalk to the door. Perhaps, and this was only a working theory, it was his traipsing from yard to yard that was causing people such distress. He walked along the part, following its S-shaped curve from the sidewalk to the front porch.

Again, the cacophonous discord of doorbells being rung and doors being battered rang out. Can’t go changing too many variables all at once, can we?

This time, a small child opened the door. The college student was a giant in comparison to the bug. “Hi. Is your mom or dad home?” he asked through his biggest, least scary, smile.

“Uhhhh, one sec,” spoke the child as he ran back through the door. Maybe the smile was scarier than the teenager thought. He put it away and watched through a glass door as the small child ran down a hallway to a room, stood still for a second, and ran back down the hallway past the door. It was a Saturday; there were probably good cartoons on the TV. A few moments passed and then a larger shaped occupied the doorframe. Now the college student understood how children felt around him: scared that being squashed was a real possibility. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was short in comparison.

Again, the student repeated his spiel. But this time, something unique happened. The monster in the door did something unexpected. The monster’s voice boomed, “Thanks for reminding me. I got so caught up in the Presidential race that I forgot all about our local elections.”

Quite stunned, the student just stood in the monster’s shadow. A kind of awkward silence fell, and the college student said thank you and that he was glad to be of service as he excused himself to elsewhere. That man, while being one of the nicest people of the day, was by the far the scariest thing since either Freddy or Jason. The college student longed to run down the sidewalk to any house that wasn’t this one, but knowing it might offend – or worse, provoke – the monster, he merely walked down the path from the home and to the next door.

The student continued, moving house to house and trying to get people to vote for Chris Logan. Well, against K.C. Crosbie at any rate. He tried to have some fun with the experience, despite being forced to volunteer an entire Saturday away. He tried to tie in thoughts from his English class. At one house, where a K.C. Crosbie sign was staked to the middle of the front lawn, he attempted to draw comparisons between problems in the local community and a child being locked in a closet as in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Knowing he would later have to write an essay on his volunteer work, he made sure to explain his point thoroughly.

“In Le Guin’s essay damning Utilitarianism, she depicts a child locked in a closet that by some unknown function helps the entire of civilization to be not unhappy. These people are not happy, mind you – they just aren’t unhappy. This child is neglected, starved, and essentially tortured, yet only some people find it offensive enough to leave the civilization – to turn their back on a utopia that functions because of the suffering of one child. In the seventh district, we keep the homeless in the streets, begging, and do little to help them past donating goods or just giving them a couple bucks. What we should be doing is taking them into a school and helping them to learn a skill, but still, we neglect them. We need the homeless, in a way – they help us to feel good about ourselves. We keep them there so that whenever we want to feel good about our lot in life, we can look at them and say, ‘Well, at least we’re better off than that guy,’” the college student said. He gave himself a pat on the back as he walked away, knowing that when it came time to write that essay, he’d have some way to connect it to in class materials.

The last house of the day had no signs in the front yard. The house was plain, the lawn recently mowed, and it looked like no one was home. Nevertheless, the college student walked up to the door, rang the doorbell and knocked on the door as he’d done a hundred times before that day, and waited for someone to answer. An elderly woman answered the door, wrapped in a shawl, and asked what the student was selling.

“Nothing,” he said, “I am trying to get the word out about our local council person election. I’m currently campaigning for Chris Logan.”

“Oh, he’s a nice young man. He came to my door the other day, dear. He’s already got my vote.”

The college student rejoiced. After a day filled with people ignorant to the upcoming local elections he’d finally found someone who knew about more than who was running for president.

Nicholas Aden is a Materials Science and Engineering Major at the University of Kentucky. He wrote this essay for ENG 104-035. Nicholas is now posting this here and since he owns it, it's not plagiarism, damnit. In editing the essay so that people could read it online, he realized that he didn't finish typing a sentence in his "final" draft.