In the middle of the night, Jake gets up in his old room, which appears strangely unfamiliar to him since he's emptied quite a bit of it during his gradual move, takes a shower in which he tries unsuccessfully to wake up, gets dressed zombiestyle, eats a bowl of cereal in the dark, and then stumbles down a few blocks to the corner church where last night he and the other election workers set up things for today's voting. Jake wonders a bit about the supposed separation of church and state when an election is occurring in a church basement, but he's soon too occupied, along with his fellow poll workers, with getting things ready for the voters' arrival at 6:30, to worry about that.
Soon he has other things to worry about.
Like running out of donuts. One precinct quickly runs out of "I Voted Today" stickers because they got shorted, and another actually runs out of ballots, but the poll workers deal with the donut dilemma first, taking a vote among themselves as to who should run out and get some more donuts. Since a lot of his fellow poll workers are senior citizens and it's raining outside ("My arthritis is acting up. I better just sit here."), Jake gets voted in as Donut Dasher. Bruce Goose, working another precinct across the basement, vouches for Jake, "Don't worry, ladies. This kid knows how to pick donuts."
It's hard to take a country seriously when it's system of governance depends on little old ladies who argue about who ate the last donut.
As Jake leaves, he already sees lines starting to stretch outside the building. Francine would probably say something like "Americans' naive faith in democracy never fails to be amusing" but Jake just thinks of the long day ahead of him.
But first, donuts. Jake makes his way to his parents' house to get his car. He makes the mistake of stopping inside, where his dad also puts in an order for donuts, but fortunately Mom's already left for work so she doesn't place a donut order as well.
Jake drives to Don's Donuts, where, inside, old men sit at the donut bar drinking coffee and complaining about politics.
"They should vote all the bastards out."
"What about the bitches?"
"Vote them out too!"
Jake just chooses one kind of each donut, aware that there is no way to please the pollworkers nor his father and this is the timeliest solution.
Hmm . . . Jake wonders how long he can stay away from the polls.
After paying for the donuts and picking up his four boxes, he decides not to risk playing hooky from work, and heads straight back to his house where he parks his car, gives his father his dozen ("Ach! I told you no jelly-filled!"), and walks back to the church, hoping he doesn't trip and spill donuts everywhere.
The overcast skies turn on the taps and rain pours down and Jake laments not having an umbrella with him, and then realizes he probably couldn't carry an open umbrella and three dozen donuts anyway.
When he gets back to the church basement, he's quite wet, but he's somehow managed to keep the donuts dry. He hears Bruce Goose loudly telling voters whom to vote for ("And I'm a precinct judge, baby, so I should know!"), then all the pollworkers halt the polls and attack the donuts.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel.
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