Celine (Australia) votes on Election Day
What has Stephen Fry got to do with “Australia Votes?”
Nothing, but he is an English comedian, actor and writer, and I like watching his “Top Gear” shows! Some may see him as irreverent, but who has never once been irreverent in their Life-time?
Saturday 18 May 2019 is the day that the people of Australia vote for the next installment of the Federal government.
My plans to rock up at 8.30 am at my local school went awry when I had a troubled sleep (because I was cold although that could have simply been remedied by my having wisely chosen winter pajamas rather than my summer outfit); plus I had a couple of nightmares.
Not sure about why I had nightmares, but I had to go and vote, dragging along my partner (Mere Male) to accompany me on the walk there. MM prepared me to walk down the road.
He insisted that I put on my sleeveless gloves after I donned my smart new lined jacket (that I had bought for $50 recently from Target, even though at the time I had thought that I wasn’t worthwhile buying it).
I had a complete moment of mental blank, asking him if I needed my ID and he replied “I don’t know” and this is because he is not an Australian citizen so doesn’t vote.
I opted to take a little light-weight bag with a tissue in it and my Drivers license, and he kindly gave me some cash for my bag, enticed by my telling him that the School usually had good things for sale at the polling place, and may very well have some Lego.
We have been into Lego now after watching the magnificent Lego Masters series. Off we set, walking along the wrong side of the road, with MM (mere male) saying this is dangerous, and it was because there was a truck stopping us from going on the grass and we were around a curve which a car driver coming around couldn’t see us in the middle of the road.
“There’s room behind the truck” I advised and squeezed my way between the truck and the fence of somebody’s home. Well we made it, where MM left me and one hour later I returned home.
As usual, the Labour team was there first, out in the street, cheery in red. As I went into the school grounds, I was rather pleased that a Liberal man greeted me with “Morning, ma’am”.
This just about made my day as I often think that I am invisible, but I have to confess that the Libs have always been the more attentive and polite toward me, leading up to and on Voting Day.
I was in quite a long queue and there was a family behind me, talking about babies and family outings until one of them dropped her How to Vote cards. Then of course I dropped mine, and the youngster quipped “It’s like dominoes.”
Once at the doorway I peered in, admiring the Aboriginal artwork on the walls, then suddenly to my surprise I was at the head of the queue. This was rather daunting to me, now being the “leader” and having stopped my comfortable shuffle forward, following the sheeple.
Someone at a long set of tables beckoned to me and I solemnly told her my name and spelled my surname as L A I and pronounced it as it should be, which is “lie” (and which everyone seems to forget how it should be pronounced, or don’t care).
Having told her my first name Celine started with a C (and usually I tell people it is the same Celine as in Celine Dion) she proceeded to quiz me about my surname, and not tuck away the important fact that I am a Celine starting with a C and not with an S.
I don’t know why people get stymied when I spell out my surname. I am quite sure that I speak quite clearly and loudly. You try it out, it’s easy to say LIE isn’t it? I say my surname is L-A-I and it’s pronounced “Lie”, and even sometimes I helpfully append “it’s a very short surname Lie which is spelt L-A-I.”
Blank looks ensue, in this case panic on the face of the election employee. She was genuinely puzzled so I testily said “it’s spelt L-A-I” and left her to figure out whether the pronunciation mattered or not.
She was pretty upset to inform me that I wasn’t even on the election roll. Here we go again I thought, and calmly said “Well I must be on it, I vote every time there’s an election.”
“There’s no Seline’ she said mournfully. A brainwave occurred to me. “Try Seline spelled C-E-L-I-N-E” I said cheerily, and of course she found it.
I didn’t have to show ID and I marched over to a vacant booth and tried to hide my “How to Vote” slips so the person next door wouldn’t look at who I was voting for.
I was rather cross at having to number 6 choices above the line on the ridiculously long white ballot slip; and confused because the election employee had muttered something to me about having to mark all 12 choices.
After some moments of rumination, it dawned upon me that I only had to select at least 6 above the line, or number all 12 below the line. It was a no-brainer.
Then I panicked as I couldn’t find my satisfying small green ballot paper. I scrabbled about in my handbag to find I had put it in there.
After marching over to the 2 ballot boxes and professionally dropping in a green slip and a white slip into the correct boxes (the attendant wasn’t watching), having other election years had trouble with the huge white slip, not realising that it was best to fold it up about 5 times to drop it in; I rushed over to the market stalls.
I spent an age browsing through a good range of second-hand books, ignoring the frankfurters on buns (though they looked delicious). I almost bought “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodie Picoult for $2 but kept looking, and as I wanted to support the school, I ended up buying a kid’s book for $1.00.
I liked the lenticular cover, then I rummaged through the cookbooks (although I have what seems like hundreds of them at home and don’t need more, you never know what bargains or rare delights may have been there) and the autobiographies.
I selected Stephen Fry’s autobiography because it had lots of photos in it, and if my partner doesn’t want to read it, well one day I will and I’ll post a review of it on my blog “Book Reviewers International.” 😃
I like reading autobiographies, but wish there were several of me to read the 3 books I have on the go at the moment, plus write on Medium, read and interact with Medium Stories and update some of my 6 or so WordPress blogs, plus go to work to pay the mortgage, and edit a Medium publication, One Table One World.
I wasn’t happy walking home, carrying Stephen Fry’s autobiography because I am small and weak (read that as I am 40 kilograms and slight and have heart trouble, and not a lot of carrying strength) because the book was heavy.
I am happier carrying a huge light-weight empty box, which I can wrap my arms around in a bear-hug, and thus be balanced besides looking like a strange box robot.
So I made it home and rewarded myself with a coffee sachet and telling my partner that I had found twenty cents on my walk. He said someone may have me on CCTV and nab me for stealing, but I rejoined that they wouldn’t have seen the detail and I would say I was just tying my shoe-lace (which they would think very likely, looking at the bedraggled state of my shoe-laces).
He asked for the rest of the money he had given me, but I refused. “No” I said “I may need it for the HBF Run tomorrow”. So he relented and at his sad face, I said kindly “I’ll give you back your loan later, plus interest as well.”
You can’t, he threw a spanner in the works, “Even if you don’t spend anything tomorrow, you have spent $3 today so how can you give me all my money back plus interest?”
I was crestfallen, thinking why hadn’t I found a lot more money than 20 cents, say one hundred dollars. Then I espied my pink and rainbow Unicorn with her beautiful jewel like crystals and assorted stones around her (as shown in my story “the Strange Tale of Lightning Bill”).
“Here” I said with a flourish, “will you accept this button as interest?
About the Author
Celine Lai was born in Malaya (not Malaysia) and is the oldest inter-country adopted person in Australia. She loves reading and writing, and runs WordPress blogs and writes technical documents. She blogs mainly on Fascinating Animals.
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