My wife insisted on driving to the polls to cast her ballot.
Even in a downpour.
She votes in person, even though mail-in ballots have been around since the Civil War.
“Going to the polls on Election Day,” she argues, “is a noble and time-honored tradition.”
She feels the same way about shopping, even though the Internet has been here for 40 years.
And the telephone for 150.
She’ll drive 10 miles to the pharmacy for Tylenol, continue to the supermarket for laundry detergent, the beauty supply store for makeup and the gas station for a $100 fill-up.
She has yet to discover online marketing.
I filled out my ballot at home enjoying a turkey sandwich, a beer, and the Lakers game on the big screen.
She considers my routine a sacrilege. I’m not sure if she’s referring to the ballgame, the beer or the mail-in ballot.
I estimate that just her drive to the polling site costs roughly $5 for gas versus postage-paid voting.
She even drives to the store to buy pizza, to the post office to purchase stamps and to the bank to make a deposit. All that instead of ordering pizza on the phone, paying bills online and depositing checks electronically.
I maintain, with today’s technology, there’s no reason to leave the house.
That’s because we have a cellphone, the Internet, a wide-screen TV, a refrigerator and an Amazon .
My office chair reclines allowing me to take an occasional nap, and the wheels let me navigate throughout the entire house while remaining seated the entire time.
Sometimes I catch some flak when my wife spots me sliding into the kitchen to make a sandwich. She says it’s not healthy to live in a chair.
Thankfully, most of our flooring consists of tile, so it’s a simple glide. Yet there are those tight corners. But although the chair doesn’t come with a steering wheel, I was able to teach myself how to successfully lean into the turns.
I try not to roll out of the house since that time I fell off the chair attempting to retrieve the mail. Turns out the office chair isn’t street friendly.
Sliding to the refrigerator, however, is easy.
But as comfortable as I was in that office chair, my wife insisted I leave it and take her out to dinner.
She picked Monday, the very same night the football game is telecast.
Dinner cost $95, not including a tip or gas.
We could have been home watching the Ravens play the Saints.
And to make matters worse, she refused to accept a seat in the restaurant’s cocktails section where there was no waiting, reduced dinner prices, and a 90-inch TV.
So we waited 30 minutes for a table. In the dining area. With no line-of-sight to the football game.
And where our dinner order took a half-hour to arrive.
For $95.
Not including a tip or gas.
I could have been home, watching the game, in my office chair, with a succulent $4.99 Costco-delivered rotisserie chicken.
Erdos is a freelance humor columnist. him at [email protected].
