[Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll both grow old]

My head is heavy this morning with leftover cold medicine I took before bed. My dreams were stranger than usual — something to do with a talk show panel of freaks I couldn’t stop watching.

I drove out to Columbia yesterday to visit my family at their hotel. My mom was watching my nephews in the pool, and my dad and brother came later to take a shower and then head back out to the camp site. Of course my dad and I had a brief political tiff. He said that he would rather people fight and blow each other up in the name of security over in Iraq than here in America. He also said that he called Kerry’s campaign headquarters and they were rude to him because he’s Southern and that he won’t support someone who devalues his Southern heritage. I diplomatically explained that petty differences pale in comparison to the damage we’re doing in the world and that it’s our responsibility to right our wrongs. But he’s one of those people who thinks that the U.N. should be leveled and that Muslims are a fair target at any time because they’re a blemish on the world’s complexion. So my dad, a lifelong Democrat, is voting for Bush. And he always pulls the Age=Wisdom card and tells me that I’ll suddenly get it when I’m older.

My mom, however, voted for Bush the first time around, but she’s undecided this year. I did my best to explain things that she probably wouldn’t have learned from FOX. She did say, however, that in all her time on the road (she works on a blood donation van that travels West Tennessee), she’s seen far more Kerry yard signs. Neither of my parents watched the debate, so they can’t possibly imagine how badly Bush did, though they might chime in and call it a victory like Bush loyalists have been doing. My nephew, Casey, voted for Bush in a Weekly Reader poll. I told him to keep his interest in public affairs as he ages. I’ll wait until he’s older to indoctrinate him.