It’s all in the smile. And the smile was probably the only reason why neither David nor I got into too much trouble while handing out how-to-vote cards today. That is, if you don’t take into account the fact that we lost both our signs (you know, those big flimsy things with “Family First” written on it with the party logo and all), within the first hour of our shift. And lost one of our poles (for attaching signs to) an hour from the end of it.
I know, I have absolutely no idea how it happened too. And I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if David hadn’t said, “Ey, what happened to our signs?”
Come on, we were busy handing out how-to-vote cards, watching the National Union of Students Queer people chanting, “Howard is not welcome here, racist, sexist, anti-Queer”, while remembering to smile the whole time. Plus, it just didn’t dawn on us that people would take our signs in the first place. We didn’t even have a booth. It was just two signs propped against a chair.
I don’t want to point fingers, but they were hanging around our chair a lot. And they seemed to take great pleasure in observing our panicked expressions. And they were doing a lot of grinning while observing us too. I thought the Liberals could have been better booth-neighbours though. For someone who’d made a deal with Family First to support them, you think they could’ve come up with a better response to, “Did you by any chance see what happened to our signs?” than “That’s democracy for you. We thought you’d packed up and left cos you’d given up.”
That one guy annoyed me more than anyone who responded to my “Family First? (with my sweetest smile)” with “No way”, “You’ve gotta be kidding”, “Christ, no” or the dozen or so dirty looks. Of course we had funny responses as well, like “Nope. Economies first, families second.” (To which I could only think of replying with, “Nope. Families first?”); interesting responses like “We’re Christian but we’d never vote for Family First”; or the closest I got to trouble, which was this lady who came right up to me and said, “You’re the right-wing religious party, aren’t you? I just don’t understand you people.” I couldn’t think of a response in the 3 seconds before she walked off. And you’d be surprised how many fully-grown men still make noises like “blpth”.
But I did understand a teeny bit of what blacks must have felt like in 60s America when the Queer people showed up with this banner that said, “If Howard can go to bed with Family First, why can’t we have same-sex marriages” or something like that. With that in the background, and the Queer people dancing and chanting around our Family First signs (while they were still there), it took some guts (for me) to stand there and smile and say “Family First?”. We were the hated minority and I sure felt it. I’m never looking at minorities the same way again. And did I forget to mention that they actually burned our how-to-vote cards?
All that in just the first hour.
Ashley and Angie (our predecessors) warned us against nasty people, but we didn’t think it would be directed at our signs instead of us. And there I was hoping before I got there that there would be some protests or something. Just for the excitement. Me and my curiosity. I was actually thinking more towards people dressing up as rats and stuff. Though there was this bunch of people dressed as flowers and trees and butterflies who went around hand-in-hand doing what looked suspiciously like sniffing people. I’m not exaggerating.
But as you can probably tell, I had fun. Lots of it. And David and I got became pretty good at having fragmented conversations. Or, one really long conversation interspersed with “family first”s. The company really helps. All the other volunteers were pretty much working solo, which must get tough, especially when people are mean to you (which a group of guys were to a Labor volunteer). But then again, we were the youngest, the only Asians (until maybe the last 30 minutes), and the softest. Like, in terms of volume. But we had our tactics to make up for it. And I reckon we had the most fun.
Anyway, here’s David’s version for more details, including our “secret tactic”. And here’re my top 6 favourite moments of the day:
1. Ashley: “Is the chair still there?” When David called to tell him we’d lost our signs.
2. Realizing the signs were gone (which took a few minutes to sink in), and the fact that we lost them within an hour of our shift.
3. The super cute pug and bulldog puppies that some voter brought along.
4. The cute baby in a pram that smiles when you wave at him. Needless to say, all the volunteers lining the queue took turns waving.
5. The really, really cute small boy who was so happy when I handed him a how-to-vote card. You never know, he might give it to his mother.
6. The Catholic woman who wanted to vote for a Family First representative in her area so much she took the trouble to ask us for details, and then went all the way back to her area to vote even though she was already right in front of a polling station.
